Camouflage
by ahnohnahmoohse
Summary: Sasuke is a regular teenager - caught in a life he hates, with parents he tolerates, and a brother he loves. But one day he meets someone who will change everything and make him realize he's not quite as normal as he thinks he is. AU. Vampfic. NARUSASU.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine, and I do not profit from this work :)**

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><p><strong>One<strong>

Sasuke stared hard at Itachi. Harder than he'd ever stared in his life. Emotions that had been brewing inside him for years had finally come to a crashing fruition, making the air burn in his lungs and his chest simmer in a roaring conflagration of feeling. He was confused, sad, shocked, and most importantly, _betrayed. _And yet even as scenes of physical and verbal violence buzzed in his subconscious, all he could bring himself to do was stare.

"Sasuke…" Itachi said quietly. His words were soft, but his tone was impatient. "Just come inside."

The Uchiha turned slightly, motioning with his body towards the door directly behind him. His arms never uncrossed during the movement to protect his chilled body in the cold, winter air of the night, and though he was not uncomfortably cool, Itachi couldn't suppress a shiver when looking at his little brother, standing in nothing but jeans and a blue shirt, completely oblivious to the heavy goosebumps appearing on his skin.

Sasuke felt himself take an involuntary step back at Itachi's words. He felt like he couldn't breathe.

"Come inside, Sasuke." Itachi's voice was harsher now, almost commanding, but once again, the words were soaked in concern. "It's freezing out here."

Sasuke clenched his eyes shut as he stepped back again. "No." he answered simply.

_But where will I go_? He thought with a tinge of hopelessness.

He couldn't go with Itachi… not yet. But when he the idea of going back home entered his mind, his thoughts became even more heated. No way, not with Itachi just having dropped a bombshell like that. His father would be in an awful mood for the next month, and seeing his mother powerless against his temper, as well as being just as disappointed as his father in his perfect elder brother, would be too much.

"Sasuke-"

"No!" he shouted at Itachi, his voice cracking on the word. He clenched his eyes shut again, so hard that they hurt. It was like he was wishing that everything would disappear if he could just shut it out with enough vehemence.

But when he opened his eyes nothing had changed.

Seeing his brother practically heaving on his doorstep, Itachi softened. Something tight and cool was settling in his chest, and he had a sneaking suspicion it was guilt. "Sasuke…"

Sasuke looked straight into Itachi's eyes, his gaze uncharacteristically penetrating and emotional.

"Sasuke, I don't want this to change things between us. I can handle losing contact with father, but I can't stand losing contact with you." He edged closer. "Nothing's changed."

"E_verything's _changed!" Sasuke's voice cracked on the loud response as he stepped back again and further into the cold darkness. "You lied! You lied to father! You lied to me…"

"I didn't mean to." Itachi responded harshly. He had never been patient, and now Sasuke was just pushing it. "What could I do differently? I didn't want to keep secrets, and in the end I didn't."

"You're a… a…" Sasuke's voice, now humble under the crushing weight of the silent night, stumbled over the words.

"A gay? A fairy? A faggot?" Itachi interjected Sasuke's rant bluntly, causing the younger Uchiha to wince at the stone-like words. "Just say it, Sasuke. Just accept it and move on. I have." Itachi sighed, biting his lip as he calmed himself. "I just didn't think it would matter, not to you."

Sasuke felt his emotions come crashing back as he watched Itachi cover his face with his hands. There was no way he was crying, but god he looked close.

"I don't… I can't… I…" Sasuke stuttered uselessly. Starting again, he withdrew even deeper into himself. "Itachi, I'm sorry."

Itachi's head snapped up at his brother's tone only to see his back as he walked noiselessly into the dark shadows surrounding the building. Itachi would have gone after him, he really would have, but he couldn't move.

He had been ready for this. He had made sure he was ready. But he hadn't made sure Sasuke was.

_Why should I have?_ A part of him bit back in defiance as he lumbered absently through the door to his small apartment, worry panging in his chest. _This is _my_ problem, _my_ obstacle, not his._ And while Itachi knew Sasuke was being a little selfish - making his admission about himself - a part of him still sympathized with the arrogant teen.

Itachi had made sure he was ready to tell his parents and his friends. But Sasuke was his baby brother, with whom he shared one of the most genuine, yet oddly temperamental and deeply superficial relationships he'd ever shared with anyone.

_I should have told him differently._ Itachi glanced back at the darkness outside his doorway before quietly shutting himself into warmth. _I should have realized he'd be the only one to care. _

* * *

><p>Sasuke knew Itachi wouldn't follow him. He just knew it. Itachi had never been one of those people – people who chased after you if you left in a fight, or followed you if you ran away. Itachi had told him once that people did those things for a reason, and if they wanted to be left alone, he would leave them alone. He had made himself seem cold and indifferent at the time, but Sasuke knew his brother cared about him, and he also silently thanked him as Itachi let him slink away in cowardice into the cold night.<p>

In the end, he had walked around in the cool, dark air for hours, until his feet hurt and his skin went numb with cold. But still, he couldn't feel anything.

_Maybe I'm feeling too much. _

His life was falling apart - or at least that's what it felt like to the teen. His family was broken and cracked, kept together with cheap glue that was holding on just long enough to see Sasuke out of school. His mother was desperate to keep everyone together, and his father…

His father, who always seemed to be the personification of perfection to Sasuke as a child, had since become the very symbol of every contradiction in the teen's life. He wanted his father's skill and talent, yet at the same time he was a perfect example of the type of person he least wanted to become. He yearned for his father's approval, to draw out that small smirk of support, and yet, sometimes he just wanted to tell the hard, unforgiving man to go and fuck himself.

And then there was Itachi. Itachi, who had left Sasuke all alone in that shell of a home. Itachi, who had abandoned him when he seemed like the only ally he'd ever had. Itachi, who had trusted Sasuke to be grown-up enough to deal with this drama, _when I obviously am not... _he thought with a grimace, relishing in the stubbornness of his self-pity.

Sasuke knew, deep down, he had no right to feel this way, or to have treated Itachi like that. _Itachi is the one who's dealing with shit right now, not me. _He chided himself softly. But he just couldn't shake the feeling of abandonment and loneliness that clung to him like gossamer threads of insecurity.

He got back to his house at about 3 am, and walked through the myriad of halls and rooms slowly, not daring to disturb the darkness. Of course his parents were asleep, not even worrying about where he was or what he, and their elder son, had been doing.

Slipping into bed, he set his alarm for five, so that he could get up before his father and walk to school without having to enter into any semblance of interaction.

_Ever the coward…_

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><p>The day had been a blur for Sasuke – long and boring, slow and monotonous. The work was easy, the teacher just a deadened weight on his frustrated, mercurial mood, and as usual, the students were distracting and annoying, but the whole day's happenings were even more mute than usual – hazed over by a nagging, almost disturbing, deep-blue haze of fatigue and hopelessness. Though… hopelessness was probably the wrong word. Rather, a haze of fatigue and <em>contentment<em>. He was there, alive and breathing, and he was _content_. He was not happy, and he was not sad. The emotionlessness of it all was suffocating, but the fact that even the sensation of lacking that metaphorical air was muffled and dampened by the haze around him made the state all the more infuriating.

_Hn…_ _maybe I am feeling something…_

"Oi – Uchiha."

Sasuke turned, the action slow and curiously free of superfluous movement, to set eyes upon Neji Hyuuga, the only person in seemingly the whole building who had enough sensibility and awareness to Sasuke's character to be able to approach him and earn any semblance of a response. The brunette had technically been Sasuke's best and closest friend for years, though their relationship was undeniably one more of convenience than actual friendship or mutual liking.

It was good for each of them to hold the friendship, however superficial it may have been; it helped to get other people off their case.

"Shall we go?"

Sasuke gave a quick, once again unhurried, nod of affirmation, and proceeded to silently follow Neji out of the small classroom with his bag slung over one shoulder.

They walked together in silence until they were well out of the school grounds. Both of them lived in the nearby wealthy suburbs, so, often for the sake of convenience, they walked home together. Usually it was in a nebulous haze of companionable silence, but this time, for whatever reason, Neji was feeling unusually inquisitive.

"You're even more aloof today than usual."

The words were a statement spoken in cool, calm indifference, but something in Neji's tone hinted at a deeper sense of interest… almost concern.

_Surely not… _Sasuke mused as he hummed a note of rough amusement. "Is that so?"

A moment's silence.

"What happened?"

_Hn…_ Sasuke let a soft smirk spread onto his face at the answers that came to his mind, but none of which he allowed to traverse to his voice. _My life's gone to shit... My older brother has been outcast… _again_... My father's refusing to pass on the business to him, and he doesn't want to pass it to me. My mother is depressed… and I'm fucking _content_… _"Nothing."

Neji pursed his lips incredulously, and, in a fit of motion, managed to stop walking and grab the raven's forearm in a tight grip, effectively swinging the Uchiha backwards.

"What are you planning to do tonight?" Neji questioned suspiciously. It was not an invitation, the Hyuuga's intonation made sure there was no mistaking that, but Sasuke knew the teen well enough to be able to sense the mistrustful air to the tone even if it had been a third as obvious… and once again, the words were bordering on a quality suspiciously akin to concern.

Sasuke smirked, wrenching his arms free of the strong hold with a surprising display of strength. "Nothing."

An exasperated sigh emanated from Neji as they slowly continued moving.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the Hyuuga's stubbornness before he reluctantly gave in and supplied a little more information. "I might just head down to see Shikamaru."

The silence that came in response could hardly be called silence at all. The tension radiating from Neji was more telling than most words ever could be.

Shikamaru was a middle class, average looking, unenthusiastic individual who, like all truly gifted and talented teens (despite his advanced intelligence) was failing all his classes. Even though he went to the same high school as Neji and Sasuke, situated in the midst of wealthy, high class housing estates, he spent most of his time hanging out with the kids on the other side of town, a past time that usually involved copious amounts of alcohol and loud music.

"Shikamaru's still alive, is he?" Neji mused softly as they continued walking.

"Hn." Sasuke smirked again. "He's smart enough to steer clear of complete and inescapable trouble."

"Are _you_?"

The question hung in the air between the two teens, heavy and dark as they continued to walk past increasingly large and private properties. But what was really bothering Sasuke was a nagging question in the back of his head – deep and teasing.

… _Do I want to be?_

"Look," Neji began as the pair of them stopped at the intersection of two long, wide streets of sizeable houses masked by elaborate front yards. Somewhere from behind them, a child laughed, and in the distance, a dog barked.

Sasuke crossed his arms, looking to his friend with slight humility after gazing lingeringly down the Hyuuga's street.

"I just don't want you doing anything dangerous."

The raven rolled his eyes, turning away, but Neji continued.

"I mean, honestly, you've always been a little self-destructive. And I don't know what's happened to you, but '_nothing_' wouldn't make your…" the Hyuuga pulled his eyebrows together and motioned to the area around Sasuke as he struggled to find the right word, "_cloud_…" he settled for the description with a slight grimace, "_this_ much darker."

_My cloud?_ Sasuke thought with a smirk, deciding not to challenge Neji's words, however cryptic he might have found them. "Don't worry about me, Neji." Sasuke said as he began to turn around. "I'll be fine. I just plan to let off a little steam."

At the lack of an answer, Sasuke continued to walk away until he was almost down to the edge of the next, large property that occupied the street, but stopped when Neji called after him.

"You're a real son of a bitch, you know that, Uchiha!" He shouted down at the raven with a remarkably neutral tone. Across the street, a woman eyed the teens warily, turning to walk inside her sizeable house with as much normalcy as she could muster.

Sasuke ground his teeth a little. Anything coming back to his parents was always a bad thing, and he'd think it would be the same for Neji. It was a small neighborhood. _Everything_ came back around eventually, even a moderately loud teenage insult on the street. With a slight grimace of tediousness, Sasuke turned back to Neji and walked a little closer, until Neji, who was obviously not done, no longer had to shout to get his message heard.

"Just because you don't care about anybody else doesn't mean nobody worries about you!"

Sasuke stared at Neji, his expression, as always, harsh and impenetrable. "I didn't ask for your concern."

Neji sighed and rubbed his eyes a little, moving the strap of his bag further up his shoulder as he fought to hold back a smirk of frustrated disbelief. "I know. I'm sorry of my humanity is an inconvenience for you."

Sasuke watched, his expression unchanging as the Hyuuga began to turn around.

"You know what?" He said softly, the brunette's tone warm in such an emotionless, indifferent manner that it served to make his words much colder. "Just don't go and get yourself killed. My uncle would be very displeased with me if he found out I let a future business associate slip through my fingers."

Sasuke ground his teeth subtly as Neji turned and walked away, disappearing down the wealthy street like a tiger into savannah.

_Camouflage… _an internal facet of his subconscious commented dryly, unsuccessful in squashing the small ember of jealousy that burnt inside him before its heat could come seeping into his conscious mind. _I wish I were as good at it..._

* * *

><p>As Sasuke stepped into the large house, he felt the air leave his lungs in one slow, seeping leak. Stepping over the threshold into the large, open reception room, he felt his chest buzz with a curious mix of forces: explosion or implosion – a choice of emotional death.<p>

He could hear his mother crashing about in the kitchen, and the theme music of the news channel wafting into his ears from the lounge room to the raven's right. He stood there, empty and silent and out of view as he quietly shut the door, feeling the familiar lead weight settle on his chest as he stared at the staircase that wound up one side of the large, open two-storey space with cool indifference.

It was a catch-22 of the most classic kind. He didn't want to go up the stairs, but he didn't want to see his parents either...

"Sasuke?"

_Too late_… the raven thought, emotionless. He turned a little and forced a soft smile onto his face as he saw his mother peek around the left-side entry to the reception space. She wiped her hands on the pale blue apron tied around her waist, her soft features tired in their smile.

"How was your day?" She asked, smiling a little more fully as her son approached her.

Sasuke kissed his mother on the cheek lightly, noting the soft hint of wine that clung to her breath as he pulled gently away.

"Good, mother," he answered, trying to drive a little more emotion into his words than he usually managed to force believably. "I got an A in the biology exam from last week."

It wasn't a mark that Sasuke was particularly proud of, but he knew his mother appreciated, if not the grade itself, any conversation or sharing of his life that she could get. Sasuke knew he wasn't the most open person in the world, least of all to his family (excluding Itachi), and while he usually didn't give it much thought, he recognized the fact that it was at least a little hard on his mother.

"Sasuke, that's grea-"

"You got an A in biology last semester." Fugaku's loud voice came shouting to the pair from the lounge room on the other end of the front of the house. Since he hadn't even gotten up to share the criticism, and couldn't even be seen from two rooms away, Sasuke decided to pay the comment no mind. Instead, he turned back to his mother and gave another, albeit weaker, smile.

"I'm going upstairs, and I'll probably be going out tonight."

His mother nodded, taking in the information slowly. "You have a lot of study groups recently." She commented softly.

Sasuke nodded, playing their usual game perfectly – not challenging her assumptions in the slightest. She had no idea what he did, but subconsciously she didn't want to, so he wouldn't tell her.

"Oh, and Sasuke," she added as an afterthought. The raven glanced back at his mother as she spoke, becoming much more interested when he caught the way her eyes glanced almost nervously towards the lounge room, the steady hum of news commentary seeping into the rest of the house like disease. "Itachi called."

Sasuke took a breath, knowing he was letting more emotion show on his face in that moment than he had managed all day.

Mikoto didn't have to say any more than that – she didn't want to. Itachi had always been a rather taboo topic since he'd moved out, but with the recent happenings to do with him, he had become strictly off limits. Mikoto knew this, but Itachi knew this too – and for him to call at all meant much more because of it.

Sasuke nodded, absorbing the two words silently as he turned and began climbing the stairs with slow, firm steps.

"Will you be having dinner with us?"

Sasuke swallowed, heaving the bag further up his shoulder. "No."

* * *

><p>"Well, well." Shikamaru sighed as he sat down on the old couch next to the Uchiha and handed the raven a cup of nameless liquor. "What brings you to this side of town?"<p>

"Would you believe it if I said I liked it here?" Sasuke asked as he gratefully took a full mouthful of the liquid in the cup.

Shikamaru looked around, appraising the surroundings in silent comprehension. The two of them were lounging on a broken couch in the front yard of a dilapidated house that had been left unoccupied for years and had long since fallen into the hands of the youths of the area. Somewhere from inside the broken building, loud, bass-ridden music pumped out waves of vibration, and the constant haze of smoke in the air suggested a curious mix of cigarettes as well as various, more illegal substances. Around them was a steady stream of movement, people walking to and from the house in groups or alone, as well as some milling about the front garden and the small bonfire that had started in one corner of the block.

"Yeah – 'course." Shikamaru smiled to the raven. "_I_ like it here."

"You just like watching people."

Shikamaru shrugged. "You can't really see clouds at night." he looked to the Uchiha next to him. "And besides, humanity is interesting."

Sasuke shook his head as he took another big gulp of the liquid in the cup, grimacing in subtle delight as it knocked the air from his lungs. "Thanks for letting me keep coming."

Shikamaru chuckled lightly. "That makes me seem _very_ powerful." He mused, once again turning his gaze to the people around them.

"You are." A slight hesitation. "Here at least."

"No. I'm just smart." In the soft silence that followed, Shikamaru gazed over at Sasuke, the usually uptight, regal raven slouching in the old couch with his legs slung wide apart, pulling off a sleeveless hoody and skinny jeans with as much attitude as the best of them, leaving the spoilt brat-of-a-rich-kid vibe behind, or at the very least using it to his advantage.

"Look, Sasuke – it's no secret I don't like you," Shikamaru said, causing the deep, bottomless eyes of the raven to glance back at him, unsurprised, "but you are seriously one of the most interesting people I've ever met."

Sasuke smirked, looking back at the bonfire as a loud crack of wood echoed above the heavy music. "I don't get that one often."

Shikamaru looked ahead, deciding immediately to pursue his investigation. "So… what happened this time?"

"I don't really want to talk about it."

Shikamaru threw the raven a glance that spoke volumes. Sasuke didn't really have a choice. Talking about it was his payment for being there, and even though both teens knew that Shikamaru would never really push _that_ hard for the Uchiha's personal information, they both also knew, on some level at least, that it was a good outlet for the raven to have.

"I really don't want to talk about it."

… And an outlet that he sometimes didn't use…

"It's about Itachi, isn't it?" Shikamaru asked, holding back a smirk at the sudden onslaught of transparency that graced the Uchiha's usually cold, impenetrable features. "Ha, hit the nail on the head with that one, didn't I?"

"Shut up."

Both teens settled into a soft, companionable silence as the conversation dried. The loud music was seeping into Sasuke's chest, and the almost empty cup in the raven's hand had him nicely buzzed and numbed up just enough so that everything seemed that littlest bit easier.

Sasuke was just about to ask Shikamaru for another cup of the substance when something caught his eye – a flash of red.

_What is that? _He thought slightly drunkenly as he rubbed his eyes.

He was a little taken a back to notice that the red was in fact hair, beaming from its place atop a teen who was stalking out of the entrance of the dilapidated house in what could only be described as completely unselfconscious discomfort. The redhead was pale, and while not necessarily handsome or beautiful, came across as undeniably remarkably aesthetically pleasing. That being said, despite his noticeably femininely lithe physique and stature, as he approached each person he passed with a never-changing expression of mildly disguised concern, they backed away in fear.

_Hn…_ Sasuke found his eyebrows crease slightly in confusion.

"Hey Shikamar-" Sasuke addressed his companion in an effort to find out who the curious character was, but his voice stilled when he found the Nara in the midst of a quiet conversation with a teen on his other side.

Biting his lip, Sasuke returned his gaze to the redhead who was steadily approaching as his brief, uncomfortable conversations with the people milling about the front of the property heeded rather obviously fruitless results.

Clearly frustrated, Sasuke felt himself straighten in slight apprehension as the redhead set eyes on Shikamaru and, somehow reluctantly, made his way closer.

Sasuke understood why the others were backing away when the redhead came within a talking distance. It wasn't anything obvious – nothing as overt as a scar or wound, and nothing as obviously unnerving as a stance or habitually intimidating expression. It was something deeper than that. It was impossible for Sasuke to pinpoint, at least in the brief moments of staring he could safely execute without the subject's knowledge, but there was something in the teen's eyes, some depth that made the owner of that otherwise sweet, tender face seem dangerous, mercurial and… _violent_…

_Oh…_ Sasuke thought with an audible intake of breath as the redheaded stranger raised his face in the nearby light of the bonfire to illuminate a relatively large tattoo that covered one side of his forehead. _Maybe it's the weird vibe… _and_ the tattoo… _

He came close, until he was no more than a meter away, standing directly in front of Shikamaru, who, through some amazing switch of observance levels, failed to notice the dark stranger's presence and continued with his conversation. The redhead stood there silently, simply waiting in stillness for almost a full minute before the Uchiha finally cracked.

Throwing the rather intimidating teen, who had not looked at the raven once, another curious, slightly heated glance, Sasuke impatiently tapped the genius on the shoulder.

"What?" the Nara asked; also annoyed, but his voice stilled as he finally set eyes on the figure in front of him.

His reaction to the boy's presence was not what Sasuke had anticipated. Shikamaru's expression, after a short stint in surprise, quickly fell to a light, panicked version of fear – unlike that of the people the redhead had spoken to before, but nonetheless wary.

"Gaara, what the fuck are you doing here?" he asked hurriedly as he got to his feet, the words and actions still somehow managing to seem rather lethargic in his haste. The sentence, while it might have seemed somewhat heated, was spoken in genuine worry.

Sasuke watched, not moving from his spot as the pair continued to talk right in front of him.

"I'm sorry, Shikamaru," the redhead… _Gaara_… replied – his voice gravelly and low. "It's Naruto, I…" the words ceased as the redheaded teen cast a somewhat wary glance towards Sasuke, causing Shikamaru to literally groan in annoyance as he remembered the raven's presence.

"What?" Sasuke asked, the alcohol barely hiding his angry annoyance at the tired gaze he received from the Nara. If he wanted him gone, all he had to do was say so.

Shikamaru shook his head, taking a deep breath at the troublesome situation, and finally found it easier to ignore the Uchiha in favor of turning his attention back to Gaara. "What happened?"

Taking Shikamaru's disregard towards their raven listener as a good sign, the redhead hesitantly continued, his tone soaked in surprisingly sincere concern. Sasuke watched intently, either not willing or unable to hide his interest in what they were saying.

"He just… disappeared. I've searched everywhere – I didn't want to trouble you, but-"

"Yeah, yeah – it's alright." Shikamaru reassured softly. "The blonde idiot..." he muttered for a moment as he thought. "Have you checked inside?"

"Yes, but only briefly." The reply was immediate.

"Okay, I'll check around the back, you go double check the second storey – people have been going through those bedrooms all night."

The redhead nodded, moving away alarmingly quickly and gracefully, leaving Sasuke with only one final, wary glance.

The raven frowned in slight perplexity, feeling strangely on edge by the pair's exchange. "Is there anything you want me to do?" he asked the Nara just as he began moving away.

Shikamaru paused, his expression making it seem like he was considering utilizing Sasuke's help, but ultimately decided against it. "No." he bit his lip a little, looking rather concerned. "Just… don't move."

A familiar weight was settling on Sasuke's chest. One of being protected, ordered, and left uninformed.

_Blonde idiot… huh?_

* * *

><p>Sasuke threw the cup onto the ground in a swift, ungraceful movement racked with proof of drunkenness. He'd left the congregation of booze and people that could hardly qualify as a 'party' pretty much as soon as Shikamaru had told him not to move, and… as could really be expected… he'd gone looking for the<em> 'blonde idiot'<em> pretty much only because he wasn't supposed to.

Seeing as the only description of the unnamed subject of Shikamaru's and the redhead's previously intense conversation was that he was blonde, named Naruto, and an idiot, Sasuke didn't really expect his self-important quest to culminate in any real discovery, but the fact that he was looking, despite the fact he was looking in an abandoned warehouse almost a block and a half down the road and was now quite heavily buzzed, gave him a sense of fulfillment that he had been seeking for a while.

Putting his cool hands into the pockets of his black skinny jeans, Sasuke coughed a little as he stepped through an old doorway into the hollow, decomposing, and massive interior of the warehouse.

It was a sad part of town, this street, but one that held its own beauty. Even in his intoxicated state, Sasuke could appreciate the eerie, peaceful calm of the warehouse – the concrete and stone floor splashed with silver by the moonlight that ghosted through the windows; also shattered and scratched. The walls were cracking, and the roof – three regular storeys above Sasuke's head at least – also had holes and fractures that leaked silver moonlight, making the whole space seem somewhat ethereal in its decay.

A steady breeze wafted through the open space, low and quiet, and suddenly, Sasuke found himself forgetting why he was out there at all. He forgot… all of it – his father, his mother, his brother, his house, his life. Before he could think why, the raven had shut his eyes and tilted his head back, taking a deep, calming breath and sighing as he felt the calm spread from his chest to his fingertips in one soft, flowing wave of cool oxygen.

He forgot all of it… until…

"Um…"

The sound snapped Sasuke's eyes open before the syllable had even been completely spoken.

In front of him was a teenager, he'd guess probably around his own age, but he looked much worse for wear. Even in the clear bias of the almost solely grey light that was cast upon him, the teen had an unmistakably pale pallor to his skin – his forehead shining wan with the slight sheen of sick perspiration.

Sasuke slowly crossed his arms, eyeing the figure before him somewhat warily. Something wasn't right. The blonde was sick, that was for sure… but it wasn't a usual sort of sick.

"Could you…" the blonde's words were cut off as a shattering, stuttering breath racked his sturdy frame. "Please l-leave."

Sasuke frowned, more than mildly disturbed by the sight before him. He couldn't place it, but even as the figure coughed, scratching at his chest somewhat wildly as he groaned out the feeble instructions, something else was echoing in the back of Sasuke's slightly drunken mind – some thought that was trying to make itself heard, but couldn't quite push through the haze of intoxication.

_Oh… That's it…_ "Are you Naruto?"

The figure's entire frame locked tight at the question, the blonde raising his face to appraise the Uchiha with newly focused eyes. Sasuke was surprised, and more than a little put on edge to find they were shining a glistening red.

_There's no way that's normal…_

"H-How do you… know that?" the blonde stuttered the words as the moment of clarity was once again replaced with a hazing ache of pain.

Sasuke bit his lip, unsure of what to do. "Shikamaru and a redhead…" the raven paused, trying to recall the name, "Gaara, are looking for you."

Coughing, the blonde… presumably Naruto, let out a huff of pained laughter. The moonlight was casting his golden hair in silver but even though the ethereal light muted the colour of the rest of his body, the red of his eyes inexorably continued – shining like they were illuminated by their own internal energy; the only real colour in the grey-scale warehouse.

"And they sent you?"

Sasuke shook his head, concerned as the teen collapsed silently to his knees and one of his hands bunched in his shirt right above his heart.

"Are you okay?" the raven asked, leaving the figure's previous question unanswered.

The blonde seemed distracted enough not to mind as he continued coughing and holding his chest as if he believed that if he let go he would physically fall apart. The only sounds in the abandoned warehouse were that of the teen's heavy, labored breathing, interrupted every now and then by a soft groan or sibilant hiss of discomfort. It was eerie, to say the least, but something in Sasuke stopped him from feeling completely unnerved or panicked.

_I should be screaming… right?_ A rational part of himself asked in slight confusion as he glimpsed at the burning red colour of the teen's eyes once again, a drop of sweat beading down the unnaturally pale cheek slowly, teasingly without haste.

"Are you okay?" Sasuke asked again, overriding his bodies panic systems to step towards the teen slowly. The eyes were pulling him closer, not hypnotically, but like he knew he should be doing something.

"Go. Now."

The words, like those before them, had been groaned out from clenched teeth, but now they were different – deeper, and darker. Something was _seriously_ wrong.

"But-"

"_Now_!" The blonde grated the syllable through resisting vocal chords as he bent forwards to slam his fists into the ground, as if fighting an unseen enemy.

"But, you need hel-"

Sasuke's sentence was left unfinished as the blonde raised his head. Whatever battle he had briefly begun fighting, he'd obviously just lost it. The red eyes were now deeper – the pupils having transformed into elongated black slits like those of a feline – his skin had become marginally darker, erasing any sign of fatigue or sickness that had been present barely a moment before, and even his hair, previously a dull gold, had instantly distorted to a deep, cloudy crimson.

_What the fuck? _Sasuke's mind hummed in a flurry of adrenaline as the boy, now beast, stared at him from all fours, prowling like a canine demon on the hunt.

Sasuke tensed, deciding on some whim of his inner-most reptilian brain not to run, but the speed and dexterity at which the possessed being came at him was so sudden an unexpected that the raven could do nothing to stop himself from being pushed to the ground. In one swift movement, the previously blonde stranger was on top of Sasuke, crouching over him with a strong hand around his neck and a twistingly sinister grin on his face.

Sasuke faltered for a moment, but then he saw it – the teeth. Peeking out from behind darkened lips were two white canines, pointy and long and _sharp_. And _that_ was when something inside the raven suddenly and irreversibly clicked.

Abruptly, just as the fanged teen began to lower himself closer to the Uchiha's face, Sasuke tensed and thrust his fist up into the being's ribs. Not pausing for a second after registering the sickening crack and the slight groan of shock and pain the force of the blow drew from both of them, Sasuke quickly brought one of his legs up to utilize the momentary weakness and flip them over.

Suddenly finding himself on top of a pained, snarling, and angry…_ thing_… the raven panicked. While he was in peak physical condition, Sasuke had never really done any physical training, but even so, he had somehow managed to seemingly expertly situate himself atop the teen. His knees were pressed into the blonde's hips and his shins pinned the thighs down, while his elbows held two strong, tanned arms to the concrete floor with one of his wrists pressing threateningly into the suddenly extremely delicate-seeming windpipe.

In the moment of shock, both of the boys had fallen silent and still, completely frozen in disbelief. For a long, drawn out second, they just looked at each other, wide, red eyes meeting large, alarmed black. But then, something strange happened.

The bright red flashed pure, crystal blue.

Sasuke jerked back in surprise at the sudden change, his breath catching in his throat, but just as quickly as the force he'd held on the blonde's windpipe was lessened, the red came surging back, and a low, demonic growl ripped forth from deep within the possessor's lungs – twice as loud and three times as angry.

Adrenaline flooding his system, Sasuke took in the sudden moment of complete and utter helplessness and absolutely and unflinchingly gave over to whatever reflexes had managed to get him there in the first place. Closing his eyes, Sasuke grit his teeth and _prayed_ as, somehow, his fist managed to connect with the blonde's cheek, once again causing a sickening crack that put an immediate stop to the deafening growl that had surrounded them.

Opening his eyes and heaving in deep breaths, Sasuke looked down to see a gasping, what looked to be terrified teen with red hair, tanned skin, pointed canine teeth, but clearly, undeniably, inescapably _blue_ eyes. Desperately, the crystal irises locked onto Sasuke's and, wasting no time in surprise, the blonde spoke.

"Again!" He shouted, having to force the word through his throat with sheer power of volume in order to articulate the syllable into comprehensible sound.

Sasuke sat up slightly, his eyes widening at the momentary sanity appearing in the orbs below him. "What?"

"HIT ME! HIT ME AGAI-"

Sasuke gulped as the desperate shout, bordering on a scream, was abruptly overcome by a deafening, thundering howl as the bright blue once again succumbed to deep, glowing red. Around them, the air buzzed with energy, and all the while that scream – piercing and deadly, shook Sasuke to the core.

He didn't waste any energy on shock this time. Swiftly and without hesitation, Sasuke pulled back a fist and plowed it into the tan face.

Grunting and taking just one moment to swallow his surprise, the raven repeated the action again, and again, and again – until his knuckles bled and his wrists ached. Groaning, he continued, tensing his arm as tightly as he could and forcing his entire upper body weight into each blow to the blonde's cheeks, nose, temple and jaw.

Slowly, with hit, after hit, after hit, the growling began to subside; sinking deeper and deeper into a silence that was punctuated only by the deep, nauseating crunch of skin on skin, bone on bone.

Taking deep, heaving breaths, Sasuke halted his methodic actions and, as he made sure all he was met with was silence, slowly and warily unclenched his fist.

The teen was lying beneath him, blood oozing from his nose and mouth, his eyes closed, resting above already-bruising cheeks. And even though the eyes were shut, the Uchiha could _feel_ that the red power was no longer present in the body beneath him. The teen's hair had returned to a golden blonde – dim in the silver light of the night that surrounded them, but nonetheless obvious. His skin had paled slightly, though only to a healthily tanned glow, and his mouth – lips parted slightly as he breathed unbelievably deeply and peacefully – displayed the presence of only bloodstained, white teeth of a much more normal length.

After taking one more extended second of inspection, Sasuke closed his eyes and released a long, endless breath that he had not, until that moment, been aware he'd been holding.

Unable to hold up even his own body as the adrenaline dissipated from his system and left him with a tired, overworked shell of a body, he fell forward onto his forearms that supported him from either side of the bleeding teen's peaceful, sleeping face.

"_Fuck_…"

And that was when something really went wrong.

_My eyes… my eyes!_

"_FUCK!_"

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**Um... hi :) Don't worry, I don't plan on getting into the habit of writing great big Author's Notes, but I did just want to take a moment to thank the people who have reviewed this story. This is my first attempt at writing a fanfiction, and I don't think many people who haven't published anything on the site fully understand how much it means to get even the tiniest bit of feedback (I know I haven't until now, and I feel pretty guilty for how few reviews I myself have given), but it really does mean a lot. **

**I am primarily writing here because I love Naruto and YAOI, but also because I want to better my writing however much I can, so if there are any mistakes you happen to pick up, or any comments you might have on my writing (or the story itself), or any bad habits I might be getting into, please don't hesitate to let me know :). I know that when I'm writing stories I can sometimes get too close to them to see the big picture errors (or the little picture ones, I guess ;P), so any comments are greatly appreciated. :)**

**So... yeah. Sorry about this long note, but please keep reading :D Oh yeah, and btw, (sorry - going to be a stalker for a second) to 'theking666' and '**Dragon77' **- holy SHIT, you have read a lot of fanfiction! Lol, I'm not sure I'll ever get close! :)**

* * *

><p><strong>Two<strong>

"What makes you think he's out _here_?" Shikamaru asked, breaking into a jog as he struggled to keep up with Gaara's haste.

The two of them had been busy searching in the house for the blonde idiot, when suddenly Gaara had stopped dead, fallen deathly still, and then abruptly run out of the house, down the street, and towards the abandoned factory strip that had been rotting on the far side of town by the mouth of the river for near on fifty-years. Of course, Shikamaru had followed dutifully, but it was accurate to say that as the sound of life gradually seeped out of the air, and the colour out of the empty streets, the Nara was steadily becoming more and more anxious with every hurried step they took.

"I felt it – his energy. He Changed."

"He Changed!" The Nara shouted, the gravity of the situation sinking in as Gaara paused, and then suddenly turned to his left, deciding to enter the large property through a hole in the decaying wire fence that surrounded it on what looked to the genius remarkably akin to a frivolous whim.

"Yes. Something…" Gaara's expression fell into a slight grimace as he jogged up the small set of stairs to the abandoned warehouse. "Someone… must have been here – he can usually control it if he's alone…" another pained pause, "...without temptation."

"Has he been feeding!" The Nara asked, his tone frustrated as he became simultaneously scared for and exasperated by the idiot's selfishly stubborn behavior.

Gaara turned back to glance at Shikamaru with eyes that spoke volumes. _What do you think?_ They asked, causing the Nara to take a deep, angry breath.

"You should probably wait here." Gaara said, practically running towards the open, broken entrance to the large building, stained in silver. "I can't feel him any more, but-"

"I'm coming." Shikamaru interrupted curtly, stepping in front of the redhead to enter the building first.

To say what he saw upon entering the large, dilapidated warehouse was a surprise would have been a drastically vast understatement. Indeed, Shikamaru vaguely registered Gaara audibly gasp as he stopped next to him to stare at the scene and make sure it was actually real.

Sasuke - his uptight, pain in the ass, interesting-as-hell, rich kid Sasuke - was lying on top of the blonde, his head resting on the teen's collar bone as he heaved in breath after breath so deeply and desperately that he failed even to notice the genius and his redheaded companion enter the large, empty space.

Shikamaru glanced to Gaara, unsure, for the first time in a long time, of what he should do. And the look Gaara gave him in return, completely lost and equally surprised, clearly demonstrated that he didn't know either.

Tentatively deciding to take the lead, Shikamaru took a breath and slowly moved a few steps towards the pair of teens, and then, hesitantly and quietly, called Sasuke's name.

"… Sasuke?"

No reaction.

"Sasuke?" the word was a little louder this time, and slightly more defined. It took a few long moments, but after the second or third time the name had reverberated through the empty, open hall of the punctured warehouse, the raven's eyes shot up, wide and scared, as he registered his audience.

But that was when the Nara got his biggest shock of all. The Uchiha's eyes were _red_.

Immediately Shikamaru thought back to the few times he'd seen Naruto when he'd gotten out of control.

_No…_ he thought, trying not to let too much of his absolute shock and apprehension show on his face. _It's not the same…_

And it wasn't. Naruto's eyes, when he Changed, _shone_ – they glistened like orange and red gems full of bright, mercurial power. These… these were different. These were darker, just as pure and endless, but solid and crimson. Where Naruto's eyes became reckless and uncontrollable, these became observant and calculating. Indeed, even now as Sasuke looked up at Shikamaru with an expression that was obviously tired and scared, his eyes continued to luster as endless orbs of power.

_But… a power he cannot use… _

The brief moment was ended as Sasuke clenched his eyes shut, obviously trying to clear them of whatever unknown power was clouding his vision, but what really snapped Shikamaru back to the present was Gaara.

Alarmed, The Nara turned to his side as the redhead fell to the ground, groaning and clutching his chest like he'd just been stabbed.

"Make him stop!" the redhead shouted as he pressed his forehead into the ground. "Make him take it away!"

Shikamaru swallowed, feeling completely out of his league as he stepped towards the pair of teens before him, trying to ignore the lingering moans emanating from Gaara's chest as he doubtfully moved away.

Apparently Sasuke had heard Gaara's words, as even before Shikamaru managed to move into action, he had extricated himself from his place straddling Naruto's body to scramble away until he was pressed with his back against the crumbling wall of the warehouse – his hands over his eyes as he gasped for breath.

"Shika-Shikamaru?" He stuttered, obviously too tired and stressed to bother censoring the emotion that was gushing out of him in waves. His voice was loud and unclear, seeking the Nara's presence almost desperately as he refused to move the hands that covered his eyes. "What do I do? What do I do? I don't know what to do." The words rushed out of the teen as an ineffective, contorted anchor in an ocean of panic.

The Nara watched – lips parted in awe – as he stepped around Naruto's bleeding figure to get closer to the raven.

_You don't know what to do? _I _don't know what to do!_

Despite his confusion at the situation, Shikamaru prioritized and decided on kneeling down next to Sasuke, and lying what he hoped was a comforting hand on his shoulder. This raven was nothing like he'd ever seen the Uchiha be before. It was the complete opposite: raw and emotional and _scared_.

_Though…_ the Nara thought as he glanced back at Naruto's unconscious form…_ he kind of deserves to be…_

"Shikamaru," Sasuke breathed as he registered the hand, the relief at knowing the genius was close doing little to outweigh the panic that continued to saturate his voice. "What do I do? I don't know how to stop it."

Shikamaru bit his lip for a moment, glancing once again over his shoulder at the blonde –broken, bleeding and unconscious – and Gaara, still curled up on the floor and breathing so deeply the Nara could see the motions from the other side of the large space.

"Just," he faltered slightly, "just calm down."

"W-What?"

"Just calm down." Shikamaru's voice was harsher now – more commanding and decisive. "Just… just take a few deep breaths and calm down. You're safe, and you can't hurt me with those eyes."

Sasuke nodded, whole-heartedly buying into Shikamaru's confidence and deciding not to question the words, or the fact that the demonic teen was still laying a matter of meters away from him, as he worked on controlling his breathing. It took conscious effort, but after a few long, tense minutes, he'd gotten his pulse back to a rhythm that could be counted as being somewhere within the realms of normalcy.

The Nara continued rubbing the raven's shoulder as he gradually calmed down, noticing slightly distractedly that Gaara had moved to Naruto's side, but was still warily and periodically glancing over at them, obviously on edge.

"Shikamaru?"

The raven's voice was quiet, tentative. It was a question that didn't need clarification; the Nara just took the query in stride.

"It's alright, just look at me. Gaara's with Naruto – so just try not and look over there."

"You don't know what it is." The raven stated instantly, his tone unflinching and cold. "You don't know what it does."

"I looked at it before – Gaara was hurt, but not me – I'll be fine. Just let me see if it's gone."

Sasuke gritted his teeth, shaking his head a little as he tried to resist. It didn't just seem to hurt the redhead and the blonde – it hurt _him_ too.

"Sasuke!" Shikamaru shouted, exasperated by the Uchiha's hesitance. "I recognize this is difficult for you, but just look at me! We have to make sure Naruto's okay too!"

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke nodded and, with a definitive courage the Shikamaru had to momentarily admire, opened his eyes wide.

Upon the action, adrenaline flooded the Nara's system. Just because he hadn't collapsed like Gaara didn't mean he'd felt nothing. There was power in those eyes… dangerous power – but now, as Sasuke looked at him with a determined yet nonetheless foreboding expression, all he was greeted with was the usual endless onyx of his proud, emotionless stare.

The soft exhale of breath and relieved, subtle nod was all the affirmation Sasuke needed before all the tensed energy that had been pulling every muscle in his body taught with stress slowly released, leaving him nearly doubled over in relief. But, just as soon as the worry had left him, the pain came rushing back – breaking through the fading barrier of panic to take its place in the limelight.

"Fuck…" the raven mumbled softly, glancing down to his hands, which were now sore and aching like nothing had before in his life as his vision swirled before him. He was going under – spiraling softly and calmly into unconsciousness… _but at least I'm safe…_ Shikamaru was there now, and he seemed to know what was going on… _so I have to believe everything will be all right_…

_Hn…_

The sound of Sasuke's limp figure hitting the stone floor was only just loud enough for the redhead to hear from his place next to an equally exhausted Naruto.

Glancing back at the unconscious Uchiha, Gaara bit his lip. "What the fuck happened here?"

* * *

><p>"What are we going to do with him?" Gaara asked as he dumped the Uchiha onto Shikamaru's bed with a huff. The raven was bigger than he was, but Naruto was worse; so he was still relatively happy at not having to be the one lugging Naruto's insane muscle to fat ratio of a body all the way from the start of the long driveway around to the back entrance of the Nara's house and ultimately up to his bedroom.<p>

Shikamaru shook his head, taking a deep breath as he literally dropped Naruto onto the floor. He hadn't exactly planned to dump the blonde there, but he'd missed the edge of the bed by a good meter, and he didn't have the energy to care. As was classic of Naruto, the blonde had healed almost completely during the relatively short trip back to his house, and he knew that any bumps or bruises he got from here on in were inconsequential.

What was worrying him was Sasuke.

It took him a moment to realize it, but after catching his breath and stepping back a little to stretch out the cramps Naruto's weight had built in his tired arms, he noticed that both Gaara and himself were staring, with an almost scary amount of intensity, at the raven.

"Who is he?" Gaara asked, not taking his eyes off the peacefully sleeping teen – long, deep breaths causing his chest to softly rise and fall as he twitched a little in his seemingly unbreakable slumber.

Shikamaru pursed his lips a little in thought, some deep part of his personality commenting dryly on how troublesome the previously interesting, but not quite as fascinating, raven was making his life.

"I don't know."

Gaara huffed a note of dry amusement in his frustration. "_You don't know_?"

Shikamaru shook his head, also frustrated as he broke his intense gaze on the Uchiha to look at the redhead directly. "Of _course_ I know who he is – his name is Sasuke, he goes to my school, his marks are impeccable, he has some serious daddy issues, and he hates his life. What I _don't_ know is anything about… _this_." The Nara motioned vaguely at the teen in front of them as he pressed the side of his face into a pillow with a soft sigh of contentment. "I _don't_ know why he could stop Naruto while he was Changed, I _don't_ understand how he's still alive, and I _don't_ have even the faintest _hint_ of an idea what those eyes of his were." Shikamaru sighed, turning slowly to move out of the small bedroom. "And I _know_ that's what you were asking."

The redhead paused for a moment, absorbing the Nara's irritated words as he watched the genius begin to exit the room, but he hesitated as the faint sound of a sleepy groan from a slumbering Naruto wafted into his ears.

"Do you think it's alright to leave them together?"

"I don't see why not." Shikamaru yawned, pausing at the doorway. "We know Naruto won't wake up and Change again – and the worst that can happen is that Sasuke will wake up and have those red eyes back, but the possibility of that is pretty slim. I doubt that if he managed to get rid of whatever they were before he passed out that it will be back in a hurry." Shikamaru smiled tiredly, his expression worn and drained. "And besides, I can always come up to check on them if I hear either of them screaming."

Gaara smirked, pushing the Nara softly out of the room. "I think you need to sleep too."

"So troublesome…"

* * *

><p>Naruto opened his eyes slowly, feeling his senses dimly awaken from the numbing waters of sleep with all the time and seemingly none of the grace in the world. His head hurt – that was the first thing he noticed, but so did his back. Gently, groaning as he went, he opened his eyes to find himself twisted and squashed with one of his arms and nearly his entire head pressed tightly into the small space between a bedside table and a wall.<p>

"Ugh…" He moaned as he struggled to free himself of the constricting space. Succeeding only after several long moments of groaning and lethargic, uneconomical movements, the blonde lay on his back and took a long deep breath.

He knew he was in Shikamaru's room – he'd been there just enough times to recognize the small subtleties in the walls, and if that wasn't enough, the minimal decoration, even the simple smell of the room, was undeniably Nara-esque.

But something was worrying the blonde. Something big. He couldn't remember anything that happened the previous night, and that, combined with the fact that he was waking up in the Nara's bedroom, and more so, in _daytime_, created a very, _very_ worrying picture for the teen. Around him, despite Shikamaru's heavy, very well made blackout-curtains being closed, the air buzzed with the distracting, subtly painful vibration of light energy, but in the relative darkness of the room, it was easy enough to ignore. But something else was there – another sensation… a _smell_.

Closing his eyes, Naruto sniffed the air in a few short bursts, trying to filter out the strong, overwhelming aroma of sun and warmth to focus on the soft, new fragrance he'd never felt before. Slowly, he began to breathe deeply, feeling the seductively calming scent work its way into his lungs like an addictive, persuasive suppressant.

"What _is_ this?" He mumbled as he subconsciously rolled onto his side, feeling a calm wash over him that he hadn't experienced in what seemed like years. Though, it wasn't as simple as that. It was an effortless, more basic sensation – a scent that, as he steadily focused on it with each new, deep breath, served to outweigh the heavy, cumbersome weight of the daytime and the lingering, teenage smell of the room to surround the blonde with just enough strength to block out all other, unwanted sensory perceptions.

Gently, somewhat reluctantly, the blonde opened his eyes to see, rather unexpectedly, a hand.

Jerking back in surprise, Naruto swallowed and gingerly sat up; his still fatigued and tired mind slowly putting together that the hand belonged to a figure lying on Shikamaru's bed, who had inadvertently spilled the limb over the side of the mattress some time during the night.

But that was when Naruto saw Sasuke's face – peaceful and calm in deep sleep.

And _that_ was when he remembered.

Immediately, Naruto's mind was alert and ready, his body tensed and prepared. Without having even the time to think about the action, the blond was on his feet and crouching next to the bed with his readied gaze targeted on the black haired, pale skinned teen without even the slightest hint of distraction. Immediately, the calming scent had been forced from Naruto's lungs, the blonde's innermost defenses expelling the aroma from his system and forcing him into taking quick, shallow breaths to avoid it.

This guy had beaten him.

This guy had hurt him.

_... This guy saved me…_

The thought was quiet and hesitant, not to mention a little scared, but the sincerity and honesty of the statement was powerful enough to overcome the blonde's reflexive and protective deeper consciousness.

_He saved me… _He thought quietly as he slowly calmed down and stood up from his tense crouch.

He was still wary, but as the blonde's panicked walls gradually came down, he felt more and more of the memories come wafting back to him, seeping into his mind from a distant, protected sect of his brain. This guy, this _teenager_, had managed to stop him while he was Changed.

_Only Gaara's ever been able to do that before…_ he thought absently as he gazed at the sleeping face. _And not always easily…_

Sparing a reluctant thought for Gaara and Shikamaru, Naruto glanced towards the closed doorway to the small bedroom, but the return of that unique scent stopped him.

Now that he was more awake and alert, Naruto was noticeably less susceptible to the calming effects of the fragrance, but that didn't mean that it was any less _nice_. The blonde closed his eyes and breathed, inhaling the sweet, spicy aroma in silence as he decided to leave the thought of Gaara and Shikamaru for a little bit longer.

This guy was just too interesting.

Turning back to the bed, he stepped over to the side of the mattress and looked at the teen.

He was handsome. That was a fact that Naruto was not going to counter. _Though…_ he thought objectively…_ he's not as handsome as he is beautiful. _He watched silently, noting as the teen slept on, how soft his straight, black hair looked, how his long eyelashes almost touched his cheeks as he slept, how pale his untainted skin was, and yet, how utterly masculine he continued to seem despite his delicate features.

Glancing down to the raven's arms, one of which still hung over the edge of the bed, Naruto frowned a little in thought. _He doesn't look _that_ strong…_ he appraised the subtle muscle that clung to the teen's upper arms and shoulders. _Though he doesn't look weak. _

But once again, it was the _smell_ that incited Naruto's interest the most. As he moved marginally closer to the teen, he noticed its strength becoming more and more distinct.

"What _is_ that?" the blonde mumbled, sniffing as he leaned closer to the sleeping raven to breathe in the air just by his collarbone.

"_Shit…_"

The word was a moan of approval – the tone an audible demonstration of the feeling in Naruto's chest as the scent of the teenager before him – under him – seeped into his body. The buzz of the sun, the thoughts of Gaara and Shikamaru, even the shattered memories of the previous night – all of it dissipated into nothingness as the calm warmth of comfortable pleasure seeped off the raven's skin and into the blonde's body.

Naruto wanted more. He _needed_ more. He _needed_ to understand what the scent was.

Tentatively, trying his best to allow the raven to continue sleeping, Naruto climbed onto the bed and leaned over the teen with quiet observance – crouching over his lithe form in a startlingly animalistic stance so that, while the raven was fully encaged by Naruto's tensed limbs, there was no contact between them.

Slowly, objectively, Naruto leaned down and sniffed, first in the centre of the raven's torso, then up to the middle of his sternum, then further up to the collarbone, until he paused at the base of the neck.

The blonde had not consciously put himself there – the delightful scent had forced him to move closer to the raven's pale skin and further up his body with each slow, seeking shift of muscle – but there he was. And he was frozen.

With his nose pressed lightly into the teen's neck and his open mouth allowing his lips to gently brush against the pale skin right over the raven's pulse, the scent of blood vastly, insurmountably, overwhelmingly outweighed the sweet scent of before. But even then, where the intriguing aroma had surrounded him with subtly and persuasion, this new fragrance was just as sweet, and just as addictive, but one hundred times as strong. This scent was _delicious_.

Suddenly, Naruto felt his mouth watering and his lips leaning down to press more fully on the subtly pulsing layer of skin beneath him as he fought the urge to reach the most pure form of that addictive aroma.

Gritting his teeth and clenching his eyes shut, the blonde felt all the preceding weeks of hunger and pain that had, the previous night, culminated in his Changing, compound into one instant of pure, wanton hunger.

But he wouldn't do it.

_I won't do it…I won't do it…I won't do it…_ he chanted. _I won't taste it… _he opened his eyes with one slow, purposeful movement. He had to slake the lust for the scent somehow.

_But I will feel it…_

Taking a deep, calming breath, the blonde licked his lips and gently brought them back down onto the pulsing skin of the teens neck, and groaned again in delight.

It was nothing like _tasting_ the scent would have been, but it was enough for then and there. Slowly, feeling the heat of the velvet aroma buzz in his chest, the blonde let his tongue reach out to run along the skin encased by his lips.

"_Mm…_" the sound pushed through the blonde's throat as a guttural moan of pleasure – the sensation causing him to shift atop the raven slightly so that he could access the neck more fully. His vast control over his reflexes (while not so complete emotionally) meant that, while the temptation to go further was still very, _very_ much there, he was able to overcome it relatively safely.

So, with a sigh of eagerness, Naruto closed his eyes and brought his mouth back down on the skin again, this time sucking lightly as he breathed.

The scent was stronger now – gathering power and potency as Naruto continued to work. He could feel it encasing him, surrounding him like a cloud of bliss and safety, an overwhelming, powerful force that made his heart race and his walls relax. He wanted to taste it, but more than that, he wanted to be _in_ it, _part_ of it – to press himself against the host of that delightful scent and become one with it.

It was only when the teen below him shifted and groaned lightly that Naruto realized he had been gradually sucking harder and harder on the now quite rapidly pulsing spot at the base of the raven's neck. Pulling back in slight alarm, he noticed with a start that he'd subconsciously pressed their chests together, but it was when he looked up to the teen's face that he got the biggest shock of all.

_Fuck…_ Naruto commented internally as watched the sleeping raven's expression, his now shallow, quick breaths traversing through a mouth that hung open from below lightly blushed cheeks. _He's kind of hot… _

Resisting the urge to return to his place on he raven's neck, Naruto hummed a note of comfort and contentment as he instead chose to lean down and press his forehead to the teen's chest, breathing in the delightfully delicious scent through the thin, purple shirt that covered his skin.

"You smell so good…" Naruto mumbled, the tone verging on a whine as he pressed his face a little harder into the toned torso.

"… So do you…"

The blonde froze still at the words – unsure whether he'd heard them at all, but somehow, from the slight shift of muscle beneath him to the pure uniqueness of the timbre of the voice, the words could not have feasibly been a figment of his imagination.

But regardless of whether or not they were real – they indicated to Naruto one considerably significant fact… _He's waking up… _

Staying as still as he possibly could, Naruto stopped even breathing as he felt the body pressed underneath him slowly move and stretch with the unconscious actions of waking. A soft groan of fatigue and an arm coming to rest lethargically on Naruto's back was all the warning the blonde received before:

"What the fuck!"

The blonde shuddered at the weight of the voice, tensing further into the raven's chest as he felt the previously warm arm hit him on the back with surprising strength.

"Okay, okay!" he shouted, pulling back as quickly as he could manage so that he was clear of the angry teen's reach. "Sorry!"

"What the fuck are you doing?" The raven continued, trying to squirm his way out of the blonde's position dominantly atop his thighs. But that was when a really rather important thought finally clicked. "Holy shit!" he shouted, onyx eyes wide with genuine fear. "You're that guy!"

Naruto stayed still for a long moment as he caught up with the comment, but then leapt into action as he tried desperately to calm the raven before he could have a similar reaction to the one _he_ had experienced upon waking.

"Relax, relax!" he shouted, slamming the teen back down onto the bed and pinning him there as best his could as he felt the raven become more and more tense within his strong hold.

But then, memory flickered in the back of Naruto's mind – sudden and stark.

"Look!" He shouted, sitting back up to hold open one of his eyelids, hoping that the raven would give him just enough time to explain. "Look – they're blue!"

He felt the teen tense below him, still, silent and apprehensive as he inspected the blonde's eyes, but gradually the fear leaked out of him and left the raven sighing in relief.

Slightly scared to move, Naruto bit his lip, leaning back further to give the pale skinned teen some space to gather his thoughts.

But that took some time.

"… You okay?"

The question, however tentative and patient it sounded, caused the raven to grit his teeth and stare at the teen with eyes so angry and tired that the blonde victim actually felt a stab of physical pain.

"I don't know why you're on top of me, I don't know where I am, I don't know how I got here, I don't know who you are, I don't know how you know Shikamaru, I don't know what time it is, I don't know how I'm alive, and frankly, I don't know how you're alive either." He took a short breath, a little unused to speaking so much in one go. "So," he looked back at Naruto, noting with victorious warmth that his Uchiha attitude was causing the idiot to almost visibly retreat into himself. "I would very much like for you to get off me so that I can find out where I am, how I got here, who you are, and maybe, just as a bonus, what the fuck was happening to you last night."

There was a long moment of silence, in which Naruto bit his lip rather self-consciously. "… You know, Shikamaru's told me that people in your situation would usually wake up in shock, but I don't think that's what's happening…"

The look that Sasuke gave the blonde at that point eclipsed any coldness from any stare he'd ever received… ever_. And that includes Gaara… _

But, just as the blonde was about to start imploding from the force of the endless black eyes, the door to the small bedroom opened and a yawning Shikamaru slipped quietly into the space.

There was no way for him to hide the shock he received upon meeting the two, intensely emotional stares – one endless, black, angry and tired, the other blue, confused, helpless, and more than a little scared. The fact that Naruto had effectively pinned the raven to the bed was also mildly intriguing. Under different circumstances, the Nara may have just found the situation a little funny…

But these were not different circumstances… and this was not funny…

"Whoa," he smiled awkwardly as he tried and failed in one ungraceful moment to relieve the obvious tension in the air. "You sure work fast, Naruto."

Waiting patiently for the comment to click, Shikamaru braced himself for the eventual response, but was actually relatively surprised when it came from Sasuke.

"Get the fuck off me!" he shouted, not waiting for the blonde to move before angrily getting to his feet. "What the fuck is going on!" he directed the question at Shikamaru as he straightened his crinkled shirt as best he could, trying simultaneously to ignore the faint body odor emanating from his skin as he ran his fingers through his hair. "Why the fuck did I wake up with the guy who tried to _kill_ me lying on top of me and sucking my neck?"

The raven was almost too angry and tired to notice the way Shikamaru's eyes widened at the last exasperated question, rather pointedly focusing on Naruto, who hastily shook his head. Though, the speedy response did little to alleviate the worried, slightly scared tone to the genius's expression.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, the Nara was once again forced to prioritize.

"Look, Sasuke, there's a lot you have to hear – why don't you just take a breath and come downstairs – I'll explain all of it as best I can."

Despite telling the raven exactly what he wanted to hear, the words did little to assuage Sasuke's mood. _A lot to hear? A lot to explain?_

The raven shook his head and clenched his eyes shut with so much force that he began to see colour dancing in the usually comforting, private darkness – but even that did little in his desperate attempt to block everything out.

_I am literally going insane…_

"I have to go," he said, his tone reverting back to reflexive iciness and emptiness as he stepped past Shikamaru and towards the door with a series of graceful, continuous movements that were unnerving in their seemingly unbreakable calm.

Shikamaru shared a concerned glance with Naruto, and was as much relieved as he was worried when the blonde spoke up.

"Look – this is something you have to face, princess. Either do it now, or later, but now would make it easier on all of us."

Sasuke stopped, and Shikamaru felt a shiver run down his spine at the action. '_Princess'_ was not going to work in their favor.

"Don't you want to know what the fuck happened last night? To me, _and_ to you?" the blonde continued.

Grinding his teeth, Sasuke tensed and rounded on the blonde, anger and fatigue setting his expression ten levels colder than anybody present in the room had previously thought possible, including himself.

"No." he spoke, proving that he had trained his hereditary Uchiha voice so well that it could easily compliment his impenetrably cold Uchiha expression. "No – I _don't_ want to know what the fuck happened last night. I don't want to know!" he took a deep breath, but, if anything, the action only served to make his voice louder and meaner. "I want to go home and get _ignored_ by my parents, I want to go to school and get _waited_ on by my teachers, and I want to leave here and _forget_ that _you_ _exist_!"

And with that, he stormed out of the bedroom.

"Sasuk-" Shikamaru shouted after the raven as he heard him clump heavily down the stairs, but was interrupted by a voice, echoing back through the house with heavy anger.

"Fuck off!"

* * *

><p>Gaara sighed, looking first at Shikamaru then at Naruto in slow, patient succession. The silence was deafening, but why, he didn't really know. It was quite a situation they'd gotten themselves into, but even so, he hadn't expected things to get <em>this<em> quiet.

"I wish he'd just suck it up and face what he saw. He's a part of all this now – whether he likes it or not." The words may have sounded logical, but as they were thrown from Naruto's mouth they were shaped in the childlike, pale-blue timbre of a teenage pout.

Shikamaru's expression didn't change as he shifted his lethargic, laconic gaze from the tabletop to Naruto's frowning eyes. A thought slowly emerged from his mind as he watched the tan teen continue to bite his lips, seemingly lost in thought. "And _why_ exactly did Sasuke say he woke up to you sucking on his neck?"

The words caused an instant reaction in both Naruto and Gaara – the blonde becoming suddenly extremely bashful, and the redhead immediately straightening in alarm.

"What?" Gaara questioned, suddenly much more interested in the conversation. "_What?"_

"I wasn't going to do anything." Naruto defended swiftly, trying unsuccessfully to dodge the tattooed teen's concerned glare.

"As far as I'm concerned, that counts as _something_." Shikamaru sighed, taking another sip of his hot, earl grey tea as he watched Gaara silently crush Naruto with the weight of his expression.

"I don't know." The blonde continued, a little put off by the lack of faith both his friends were showing in him. "I swear I wasn't going to do anything – if there was any risk, I wouldn't have gotten so close."

Gaara sighed in slight helplessness as he struggled to understand his often-perplexing idiot. "Then why _did_ you get so close?"

Naruto shrugged a little as he tried to avoid talking about the potent memory. There was no way Gaara, much less _Shikamaru_, would believe that the smell of a sleeping human could be so… _intoxicating_…

_But it was…_ he thought absently as his mind recalled the deep sense of calm and warmth he'd felt as he'd pressed against that lithe body. _He smelt _so_ good…_

"He smelt good." He admitted softly, deciding honesty was the best tack – hell, with Gaara and Shikamaru, he didn't really have another option.

"'_He smelt good'_." Gaara repeated incredulously as he began to settle after the initial panic of the topic. "You've never had the urge to _smell_ people before. Nobody has. _Everybody_ smells good."

Naruto's eyes misted slightly as he reviewed his memories and remembered the aroma in even more clarity. "No…" he sighed dreamily, locked in the subtle memories of the intoxicating scent. "He was something… else. Something… addictive."

Shikamaru felt his eyebrows pull together at the statement. "That doesn't make sense."

Naruto shook his head lightly, broken from his reverie. "I know – but it's true. I don't know why I climbed on top of him, or began sucking his neck. I just… I knew I wasn't going to taste it, and I…" he blushed lightly, a mildly ashamed of his impulsive actions, "I just _needed_ to get closer to him."

Gaara took a breath and shared a wary glance with Shikamaru.

Rolling his eyes, the genius stood. "Whatever – I cannot deal with this right now." Leaving the room, he gulped down the rest of his tea in one graceful swoop. "Whether it's true or not, chances are you won't see him again anyway." The Nara shouted the words back to Naruto and Gaara from the kitchen as he dropped his empty cup into the steel sink. "We gave him the chance to ask about what happened, and he ran. He'll come back eventually, but I don't know if he'll want to have anything to do with either of you two, even if he finds out everything."

Gaara nodded in slight affirmation of the words, but Naruto stilled in discomfort as he felt a shiver of distaste run distractingly down his spine. The sudden realization that he may never have the opportunity to soak in that seductive scent again – to see that face again – made his chest ache with physical pain.

"Don't you want to find out what those eyes were?" Naruto snapped out of his emotional detachment at the sound of Gaara's voice, the tone impartial and distant.

Shikamaru shrugged as he reentered the room, sitting beside Naruto with a huff. "Yes. Desperately." He admitted the fact without hesitation. "But I don't know if I'll be able to. He was most… uncooperative… when he left this afternoon."

"I _did_ call him a princess."

Gaara smirked, whacking the blonde on the side of the head playfully as he got up.

"See you later, Shikamaru." The redhead nodded to the Nara as Naruto stretched out his tired limbs with dragging, lazy movements. Being awake during the day really hadn't done favors for his tired body – especially after healing had taken so much out of him. "I need to get some sustenance into this one."

Shikamaru nodded, also standing to show them to the door. "Feel free to drop around – my parents aren't going to be back for another three weeks, but…" he sighed, glancing at Naruto. He knew the blonde wouldn't like his request, "try and stay away from the house downtown, I just-"

"Yeah – I know." Naruto interrupted, his voice warm and more than slightly apologetic. "I will… sorry."

"It's alright. I'll talk to Sasuke, and I'll tell you anything important, but please don't seek him out. We need to handle this with his interests in mind – he's in a difficult place."

Gaara took a breath, hauling Naruto after him with a huff of effort. "We all are."

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you very much for the lovely reviews, and sorry for the wait :)**

* * *

><p><strong>Three<strong>

Sasuke took a long, deep breath as he stared at the small house in front of him.

The door stared back.

He had gone home before he'd come here - walked all the way to the wealthy estate from the other side of town, only to reach the imposing prison of his home and turn back, basically doubling the ground he had covered. He'd even walked all the way up the driveway, but as soon as he'd come to stand in front of the large entrance way and begun to smell the familiar, artificial perfume of his mother's cleaning products, his body had _made_ him turn away.

Inexplicably… or not so inexplicably… he'd found himself here.

In front of Itachi's place.

Sasuke was not ready to face his elder brother quite yet – he was embarrassed at his behavior; at how much trouble and worry he had caused the older raven, but he also recognized with a not so insignificant part of his person, that he was still a little angry.

_Being gay isn't _bad_… _Sasuke thought as he procrastinated. _I just… I never thought about it before… _

He sighed, running his tongue over his teeth idly, wincing as he noticed how furry they felt after not brushing for a day. He hated that feeling.

_I don't know what I want him to do… I don't want him to be _straight_ if it makes him unhappy… I just…_

"Just what, Sasuke?" he asked himself aloud with a subtle, yet chiding tone. _Just what? You just want some clarity after a night of complete and utter nonsense? You just want someone to be honest with you after a lifetime of lies? _

"I'm going insane."

The mumbled statement did little to make the knowledge, already cemented as fact in his mind, any less fictional, but saying the words out loud, however quietly, did seem to scare him in a way. Was there really any way to explain what had happened the previous day – even that morning – without the use of the word 'insanity'?

_No._

Glancing to his watch, Sasuke noted that it was only 2:00pm.

_He should be home…_

Squaring his stance and rolling his shoulders back, Sasuke decided to knock on the front door of the humble home in a moment of definitive courage. He knew his feet had taken him there for a reason. He needed a friend. He needed a brother, and he _needed_ to apologize.

After a few light knocks, Sasuke heard a vague 'come in' through the muffling wood of the door. The command reached Sasuke's ears just in time to make him hesitate.

_God I'm a coward…_

Gently, the raven opened the door and peeked inside the humble home. He'd been inside Itachi's place before, but where he had previously barged in unannounced and without reservation, he suddenly felt like a formal, disrespectful guest arriving unannounced.

"I'm being stupid." Sasuke scolded himself under his breath as he gently clicked the door closed behind him.

"Kisame, if that's you, I swear I-"

Itachi's voice cut the sentence short, falling into surprised silence as he rounded the corner into the entrance hall wearing nothing but a pair of sweat pants to see Sasuke standing unsurely by his closed door. He stopped and quickly masked his shock as he took in his brother's disheveled appearance. The teen's hair was uncharacteristically unkempt; his clothes crinkled and stained in places with dirt and another substance that Itachi found looked alarmingly like blood. The state of the younger raven's clothes, as well as the dark bags that hung under his slightly reddened eyes, suggested a rough day, and probably a rough night.

Immediately, concern swelled in Itachi's chest, a feeling only heightened by the barely disguised guilt displayed in the usually so painfully closed expression of the teen before him.

"Sasuke," he said, frowning a little as the raven glanced up at his eyes after a long delay, "come in, please."

Sasuke slowly followed Itachi to the kitchen wordlessly, where he fell onto one of the plain, white chairs assembled around the square table. Still and silent, Itachi tried to contain his worry as he grabbed a glass and absently filled it with water.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly, his brother-complex surging forward despite his attempts to contain it. He knew Sasuke was almost an adult, but that didn't – _couldn't_ – change things in Itachi's eyes.

Sasuke glanced up at him slowly, a blush staining his cheeks before he could stop it.

"I'm sorry."

Itachi sat down opposite his brother and scratched self-consciously at his collarbone as he absentmindedly regretted his state of undress. "For what?"

Sasuke huffed a sigh of disbelief. "Just for… I don't know, for not being… better."

The elder raven smiled and leant forwards a little to lay his pointer finger on the centre of the younger raven's forehead. Pushing slightly so that he rocked back a little, Itachi laughed – the sound so rare and warm that Sasuke instantly abandoned his guilt to look the elder in the eye.

"You don't have to apologize – I should have told you differently. I'm sorry too."

Sasuke relaxed, a soft smile warming his worried expression as he nodded his head lightly in thanks for the words. It wasn't until the hot coil of guilt finally dispersed in his gut that he realized it had been so painful.

"So…" Itachi began softly, biting his lip as he leaned forwards. "What happened to you? You look tired, and I'm kind of afraid to ask if that's blood."

Sasuke shook his head, once again too overwhelmed to look Itachi in the eye as his fingers absently moved to pick at one of the dried spots of the blonde's blood that clung to the bottom of his shirt. He was suddenly feeling remarkably and alarmingly vulnerable. The past 24 hours was catching up with him – the lack of sleep, the memories that could only be explained by a medical condition, the dirt and sweat he felt clinging to his skin, finally seeing his most trusted older brother – all of it was bearing down on him with such a vast weight that he was left feeling astonishingly small and young and… _breakable_.

Itachi seemed to sense the change, and decided in the stretching silence of the query to haul his chair around the small table so he was sitting on the side closest to Sasuke instead of opposite him. But still the raven didn't look up.

"I just…" The voice was quiet. "I think I'm going insane."

Itachi took a breath, feeling an uncomfortable weight settle on his chest as he watched his younger brother bite his lip – desperately trying to reign in his emotions. The younger's nose and cheeks were glowing with a dark, unconscious blush – a premonition of further emotional discharge.

Gingerly, Itachi shuffled a little closer and extended an arm so that his hand was resting on his brother's head, ruffling the onyx shards of hair with warm concern. "What happened?"

Sasuke was 17, and while he had always been closer to Itachi than any other in his life, the elder raven had only seen him laugh a handful of times, and cry even fewer, so when the first tear slipped down his porcelain, dirt-stained cheek, seemingly without his knowledge, Itachi did the only thing he, as an older brother, knew he could do.

Immediately he stood, grabbing onto Sasuke's forearm as he did so that as he moved he wrenched the younger up and out of the seat with him.

"Itachi, wha-" Sasuke began but was silenced when he was abruptly pulled into a tight embrace. Despite their age difference, the two Uchiha's were practically the same height, so as Itachi wrapped his arms around his brother's just slightly lower shoulders tightly; it was a comfortable fit for them both.

Shocked into stillness, Sasuke froze upon the contact, but then, as he tried to swallow, realized with a start that he was crying. What had before been an unconscious tear or two was suddenly becoming an inexorable decline into raw emotional vulnerability. The younger raven clenched his jaw, fists and eyes shut as tight as he could in a last, helpless effort to ward off the oncoming surge of tears, but even that did little to help. As he broke down completely, sobbing and clinging to Itachi like he was the last ray of hope in his life, he could be thankful only for the fact that he had Itachi at all – and that he, unlike seemingly every other person in his life – was working to make things easier and better for _him_ and not for _himself_.

"Sasuke," Itachi mumbled the name softly, brotherly concern soaking each of the three syllables as he brushed the raven's hair with his fingertips in an effort to provide some support. It was like Sasuke – this enigma-like existence of youthful strength and arrogance – had finally, in the face of so much emotional detachment and loneliness, regressed to being a child; clinging to Itachi as he had only before he'd become a teenager and before he'd become conscious of his family's expectations.

"I'm," Sasuke broke off for a breath, pressing his face harder into Itachi's bare shoulder as he clung to the elder raven. "I'm going i-insane."

Itachi laughed, though the tone wasn't belittling or patronizing in the least – it was at the most a warm tone of understanding and a reminder of company in his distress. "You're not insane." He said softly, the courage of the statement lending Sasuke a little strength.

"I'm," a stuttered breath, "sorry."

Itachi sighed, leaning the side of his head into Sasuke's as he ruffled the teen's black hair softly. "You don't have to be sorry for anything, not to me."

Sasuke hugged his brother a little tighter at his words, overcome with thanks. "I hate it." Itachi winced a little as Sasuke's nails scraped across his skin. "I hate my life."

Itachi nodded, his expression serious as he heard Sasuke's muffled words. "I know – I hated mine too. But when you graduate, you can move away. You can _leave_. Or you can stay – and you'll be no worse for it. You'll be an adult soon. It won't last forever."

Sasuke shook his head, though the slight action was hindered by the fact that he was still pressed tightly against Itachi's warm, bare skin. Gingerly, he let his hold on the elder relax slightly, though he still didn't move away.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke." Itachi spoke the words softly, and with a sincerity that was while by no means rare between the brothers, was usually never so evident in his tone. "I shouldn't have left you there alone."

Sasuke sniffed, pulling away from his brother and rubbing his eyes. Itachi let him go, though didn't move any further back in order to keep his distressed sibling as near as possible.

"No." Sasuke smiled, though it was tainted given the context of his tear-reddened cheeks and watery eyes. "I'm seventeen, for Christ's sake," another huff of tired laughter. "You can leave me wherever you see fit."

Itachi smiled too as he released his hold on Sasuke's shoulder to lay his open palm once again on the teen's hair to ruffle the now _extremely_ messy spikes.

Abruptly, he turned to walk briskly into the living room. Sasuke followed slowly, rubbing his eyes as he stalked tiredly through the kitchen and out into the next room, but looked up as he heard a cupboard door thud softly shut.

"Here," Itachi said quietly, causing Sasuke to look up just in time to catch a bundle of blankets as his brother moved past him. "I'm guessing you didn't get much sleep last night, and you look exhausted, so either way, you're staying here tonight – help me put some blankets on the bed and then we'll get some food into you. I'll call home in the morning, and the guest bed is clean - I promise."

Sasuke smirked, warmed by his brother's demand for him to stay.

Somehow though, the statement of a clean guest bed stirred Sasuke, who knew Itachi wasn't one for housekeeping, to wonder who his brother may have had staying in the house and why the spare bed wasn't dirty. A rouge query occurred to him then, and without properly thinking through the possible answers, he carelessly voiced the question as he followed his elder brother up the small set of stairs. "Who's Kisame?"

Itachi stumbled a little in his footing, but while his body quickly masked the action, his face soon proved not quite as capable. The elder raven went bright red, and while it took the younger a long moment to catch up in his tired state, he inevitably did.

Unsurprisingly, that particular question went unanswered.

_One issue at a time…_

* * *

><p>Sasuke sat at his desk with a huff, ignoring the hum of conversation that surrounded him in favor of yawning widely and closing his tired eyes.<p>

Itachi had woken the raven early that morning so that he could go home and get changed in time for school. However, he'd ended up nearly being late because of Itachi having to shout at their parents for nearly an hour before the whole situation could be straightened out. In the end, when he'd finally gotten home, just in time for a shower before leaving again, his father had already left for work, and his mother kept their interaction to short, sharp bursts. And for once in his life, Sasuke didn't feel guilty for it.

The sound of a seat being lazily and heavily pushed in front of him caused Sasuke's dark eyes to open.

He didn't like what he saw.

"Neji." He acknowledged with a slight poison to his tone. They hadn't left things in the best of ways, and the stubbornness of both the wealthy teens meant that the issue probably wasn't going to be resolved anytime in the near future.

Knowing this, Sasuke was mildly surprised by the Hyuuga's puzzlingly normal response to the noncommittal recognition of his presence.

"You weren't at school yesterday."

The statement was just inviting a smart-ass response, but Sasuke restrained himself… well, not completely. "Thanks for letting me know."

Neji's expression didn't change – almost as if he expected the response as soon as he'd spoken – but he used the raven's words as an excuse to sit in the chair in front of him. "Don't worry." He said, leaning his elbow on the desk and resting his head against the open palm with a light huff of effort. "I'm not even going to ask."

Sasuke eyed the Hyuuga closely, but settled on not saying anything further. He was still tired, and while he was, somewhere deep in his inner-core, thankful for Neji's concern, he really didn't want to talk about what had happened. His soul-baring to Itachi the previous day had been his one and only possible session of facing the week's events. He had since forced himself to resign to the fact that he was not insane – or that if he was, he wouldn't be for long, for he was resolute in never thinking about the blonde idiot, the mysterious redhead, or the warehouse ever again… _Ever_.

It was a completely fallible plan, and one that wouldn't prove effective for long. But in that moment, it was all that Sasuke needed.

"I will tell you this though…" Neji said, glancing over his shoulder as their teacher walked slowly into the room – his grey hair looking, as always, oddly out of place framing such a youthful face. "Shikamaru actually came to school _early _today looking for you."

Sasuke couldn't hide the distaste that suddenly overcame him, and Neji was quick to pick it up.

"I'm still not going to ask – and that doesn't mean I don't want to know – but I do think you should talk to Shikamaru. He looked really concerned."

Sasuke didn't have the time to respond as the teacher, a man usually late to his classes, started taking the role right on the bell. But both he and Neji knew there wouldn't have been a response anyway.

Sighing lightly, Sasuke leant his head on his arm and gazed absently out of the second-storey window, willing the day to go faster. Although he had immediately wished he hadn't decided to come to school at all upon hearing of Shikamaru's willingness to talk to him, there was a burning, distracting _want_ to have that conversation that the raven wasn't fully sure he liked possessing.

Shikamaru had promised answers…_ But do I want them?_

* * *

><p>Naruto stared into the sky for an almost alarming, stretching minute of absolute concentration. His blue eyes absently gazed at the dark expanse above them, focusing lethargically on the nebulous shapes that traipsed through the endless blue with an expression that let Gaara know, lounging on his left, that the blonde idiot was thinking – hard.<p>

"Naruto?" He risked breaking the Uzumaki out of his trance, and started lightly as the intense blue eyes abruptly focused on him.

"What?"

Gaara bit his lip. Did he even have to ask? "I know what you're thinking about." He informed patiently. "But it wasn't real – your memories are making it stronger."

Naruto shook his head and sighed, glancing back up at the sky before turning fully towards the redhead. "No. It was real."

"No. It wasn't." Gaara countered quickly, his tone hard and absolute. "It's impossible."

"Why?"

"Have you thought about what you're saying – I mean, really thought about it?" The blonde winced at his friend's harsh tone, but Gaara kept going, regardless of the small ember of guilt that had lit in his gut after glancing the blonde's hurt expression. "It doesn't happen. Why him? Why would he smell _so_ much better than every other teenager in the city?"

"I don't know – but it was more than that." Naruto defended softly, pouting a little. "I didn't just smell it – I _felt_ it." His eyes stared into Gaara's own, intense and bright and hopeful. "Didn't you feel it too?"

"No." Gaara denied instantly. He couldn't let this go on. "He was no more potent than every other person on the _planet_. You have _got_ to forget about this. Embellishing this misunderstanding will only bring trouble to you _and_ to that kid."

"It was real." The words were absolute, and a little hurt. "Why do you think I would lie about something like this?"

"I don't know, because it's not _real_!" Gaara was shouting now, overcome with angry emotion. Logically, he didn't know why Naruto would lie about something like that. Deep down, he didn't really think he _was_ lying. But he was protective, and for the past few years, Naruto had become less and less stable. What would the introduction of a new sensation like this one do, let alone if it was repeated – _and what the fuck were that kid's eyes?_

"It was real!" Naruto shouted back, the hurt in his expression causing Gaara to physically wince. "I don't know what it was, but it was real!"

"Naruto – whatever," Gaara sighed hurriedly, "I don't care if it was real or not, not now. Shikamaru is going to handle him, not you. You_ can't_ go looking for him. You _mustn't_."

"Why?" Naruto was angry now, and Gaara found himself searching the blue eyes for any risk of Change as they bore into him with that unique, purely Naruto-exclusive level of emotion. "You didn't feel what I felt! I've never been near _anything_ like that before!"

"You can't see him!" Gaara shouted, abruptly getting to his feet as he tried to make his message heard, but the blonde's expression was absolute, and _furious_. _OK… I didn't exactly go about this the right way…_

"Watch me!"

And with that, the blonde walked away. He turned and left with such a definitively unhesitant series of movements that Gaara fell silent with shock. Naruto had always been emotionally mercurial… though, maybe that was the wrong word.

… _susceptible…_ Gaara's inner-most consciousness supplied quietly, fearing the wrath of the redhead's higher consciousness as he watched the blonde continue to walk away.

_Yes._ He had always been emotionally sensitive and vulnerable, but never had he gotten worked up into aggression so quickly and seemingly, at least to the redhead, without cause.

Gritting his teeth, Gaara did the only thing he could at that moment do for the blonde. Knowing it was probably an action that would cause both Naruto and the raven-haired teen harm, Gaara clenched his eyes shut and sat back down – leaving Naruto to go wherever, to _whomever_ he pleased.

He just prayed - with all of his deeply atheist being – that the blonde idiot was right.

"I hope he's worth it." He sighed to the clouds, already feeling regret wash over him.

* * *

><p>Sasuke got home right on four that afternoon – having left school precisely as the bell rang in order to avoid certain nosey Hyuuga's and Nara's. The whole day he had managed to evade both of them, and yet that fact still grated on his consciousness. He knew he regretted not seeking the Nara out – but he needed more time. There was no escaping that.<p>

Stepping into the large home, Sasuke grit his teeth and walked slowly to his room. He knew the third Friday of every month his father was at a board meeting overseas, and his mother usually went to visit the Hyuuga's or another of the wealthy family's in the district to participate in some book club or ladies night. Sasuke did his best not to know.

All he knew was that he had the house to himself – a form of being alone that, for the first time in a long time, wasn't painful.

The evening had been slow for Sasuke – after a quick check-up call from Itachi, it had consisted of nothing but hours of mind-numbing TV and constant trips to the fridge. The routine had provided just the right amount of distraction for his fatigued mind, but the pace at which time was drifting by was infuriating to say the least.

But even as he watched the television with absently half-cast eyes, flicking through the myriad of channels just long enough to become disinterested in their mediocre content, his insufferable mind kept nudging his thoughts back in the vague direction of the blonde.

Sasuke could remember in startling clarity the terrifying events of the night in the warehouse – a snarling, demonic, teenage mass pinning him down, the reflexive power that surged through his own body to keep him safe, and finally that horrifying, awe-inspiring darkness that had spread through his heart, through his veins, and had poisoned his eyes. All of it sent shivers of dread and pain down his spine.

But then… then he remembered waking up. He remembered the warm, calm nothingness and a heavy heat that had been pressed against him. A pleasant smell, warm hands, and a presence that infused him with such serenity and tranquility that – for a moment - he felt like he was being enveloped by stillness.

And then he'd opened his eyes.

Abruptly, a news theme carried him back to the present. A little pissed off, Sasuke gazed up at the wall-mounted screen to see the face of a handsome news anchor appear before him, nodding and smiling with startlingly white teeth and a humorously unlined forehead.

_Yes_… then he'd opened his eyes and the world had come rushing back – the blonde, the power, the warehouse, the blood, the fear.

_But for a moment there… it was so_ nice_…_ he mused, smirking faintly at the insanity of the memory. _Would I mind being insane if I could get that back?_

Deciding not to dwell on the answer, Sasuke heaved himself into a standing position. It was only nine o'clock, but he was bored and well aware that he still needed sleep. And besides that, the prospect of doing _something_ was a promising one in itself.

Yawning and stretching his arms above his head, Sasuke turned the TV off and made his way to the bathroom, his tired mind become more and more sleepy as he thought about climbing into his bed and succumbing to the much needed calm of sleep.

* * *

><p>Naruto knew exactly where he was, despite his never having been there before.<p>

He was on the raven's… _Sasuke's_… bedroom windowsill.

And his heart was beating like crazy.

_I should have listened to Gaara… _he found himself chanting the words in his mind – a common mantra for the blonde, especially of late. _Why the fuck didn't I listen to Gaara?_

But even as he berated himself for his actions – his thoughts acidic in their chiding – the same feeling that had overcome him when he'd woken with the raven that morning only a day and a half ago, began to creep back into him, uncoiling the tension in his body with alarming speed and effortlessness. It was weak – a mere hint of a shadow of what he'd felt when he smelt the teen's skin as he slept, but it was _there_.

The blonde sighed. _Is it real? Am I insane? _

Before he had the time to think more about it, a loud creak broke the blonde from his reverie and back to the present.

And that's when he saw Sasuke.

An explosion of emotions was released inside Naruto as the raven teen walked into his room – his lithe, toned body clothed only by a loose, low-fitting pair of sweat pants, his face flushed and still lightly damp from a shower probably ending minutes before.

Despite his semi-naked appearance, fear was the first thing to rush through the blonde's body, along with a surprisingly large amount of adrenaline, but that was quickly replaced by a clearer, calmer sense of apprehension. Naruto's panic at being caught in Sasuke's room was still rightly overwhelming, but as his eyes raked over the raven's skin in the seconds before they closed, he felt an unfamiliar sensation begin to cloud his mind and redden his cheeks. The smell was back, soft yet certain, but there was also _more_ than that.

In the end, the blonde was so taken with the alien emotions running through him that he didn't even notice when Sasuke finally registered his presence, but the raven was gracious enough to alert him to the fact.

"What the fuck?"

The words caused Naruto to tense, crouching on the window ledge like a threatened feline, but as the raven began backing away, dropping the towel on his head to the ground with swift panic, the blonde realized that he was approaching the raven in a _very_ illogical fashion.

Yes, he regretted going, but he was there now, and there was no escape.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" He shouted, getting to his feet inside the room as quickly but as calmly as he could. "Just don't freak out, let me explain!"

"Don't freak out?" The raven retorted, backing himself against the door. "What the fuck are you doing here?" Despite his wide eyes, his voice was surprisingly strong, a testament to his courage. "You tired to kill me!"

"And _you_ tried to kill _me_!" Naruto shouted back as he took a few steps forwards. "Look – I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have come here – Gaara _and_ Shikamaru told me not to, but I didn't listen." The blonde's voice got quieter and quieter as he spoke, becoming more and more humble in apology and embarrassment.

"Why _did _you come here?" The raven asked, also relaxing a little and crossing his arms over his bare chest somewhat self-consciously as the blonde deflated. His panic at seeing the teen had by no means abated, but seeing him calm down was a reassuring thing in itself. And besides that, he could feel… _something_. He didn't know what, but it was strangely chemical and familiar.

The blonde bit his lip, reluctant, but only hesitated for a few moments before answering.

"I just…" He glanced at Sasuke's dark eyes, but quickly looked away. "I just think I might be going insane."

The raven straightened at the alarmingly vulnerable words. Before he could stop it, his expression lightened into a semblance of a smirk. "Hn. I can relate."

Naruto glanced back at the raven's gaze, affirmed by the teen's words, but not succumbing to the air of forgiveness that had suddenly surrounded them both. Still slightly scared to move, Naruto smiled awkwardly and fiddled with his fingers.

"Gaara told me it was all my imagination, but…" the blonde bit his lip and summoned up the courage to look the raven straight in his endless, onyx eyes. "I… I _promise_ that I won't hurt you – I swear on…" he stumbled on his words awkwardly as he sought out a believable oath, "I swear on my life… and on Gaara's life…" he smiled clumsily, "_everybody's_ lives, that I won't hurt you." Sasuke straightened as the blonde moved closer, seemingly caught in his own trance. "And, I promise – swear – that I'll answer every question I can – answer anything that you want to ask…" he took a breath. "So, could you just let me…" he bit his lip again, but continued to stare at Sasuke's eyes so intensely that the raven couldn't bring himself to look away, despite the alarm still drumming through him. "… Can I check something?"

Sasuke took a deep breath as the blonde's words slowly sunk in. Logic told him to turn and run – to bolt down the stairs and call Itachi - but something was stopping him, a sense of camaraderie that he didn't fully recognize. This blonde idiot had been just as scared as he was, and yet, his questions, his confusion and uncertainty was incredibly like his own. _And_… Sasuke thought sullenly, his arms unfolding from in front of him as he opened his mouth slightly…_ I think I want him to do what he wants… _

Slowly Sasuke nodded his affirmation. The action was undoubtedly the result of an unconscious decision, but his conscious mind had a noticeable lack of will to amend it.

Naruto swallowed, still feeling like a cat with unpredictable prey, as he took a few steps closer to the raven teen, who was suddenly staring at him with an expression full of conflicting emotions. Naruto could see apprehension, concern, and alarm, but also a potent mixture of calm, intrigue and anticipation. But through it all, a soothing tendril of warmth was working its way into the blonde, slinking through him and uncoiling his tension like a ribbon of pure persuasion, and he could see from the subtle shifts in the raven's study, cold expressions that it was affecting him too.

_It's coming back…_ Naruto mused as he blinked slowly, taking a long, deep breath as he came closer still. A soft smile tinted his features as he reached out to touch the raven's forearm, physically linking them as he approached.

"Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to see you in my room?"

The words were soft, a last hopeless attempt at reluctance from the raven's part. Naruto opened his eyes slightly as he stopped in front of the teen to find that the pale face was tinged red - like he was sure his own was - and that the defined features, while still masculine and somewhat imposing, had melted into a subtle state of peace.

Naruto didn't bother responding to the question – he was too busy. The feeling was coming back, the aroma surging through his veins like wildfire to ignite his emotions as much as suppress them. He found himself warming almost uncomfortably as blood flooded his skin and raced through his veins, but at the same time, a sense of… not fatigue, but a similar state of calm and ethereal awareness was taking hold of him.

_I'm not insane…_ he thought with a slight, satisfied smile as he willingly let the nebulous haze of serenity overwhelm him. _This is real…_

But then, Naruto opened his eyes, and upon doing so, a new feeling joined the cloud of induced calm that floated through his hazed mind.

The raven's eyes were closed, lidded softly from above reddened cheeks and an open mouth. His head was leant back on the door behind him, causing his face to angle up towards the blonde's on a slightly awkward incline, but one that his deep, heavy breaths seemed to need in order to be accommodated for. Glancing down, Naruto observed with a quickening heartbeat that their chests were separated by mere centimeters of empty space, but more so, he found himself unable to pry his eyes away from the subtle yet defined carvings of the raven's torso, the sculpted intricacies of the muscle and taught skin captivating the blonde in ways he couldn't really understand.

_What is this?_ He thought softly as he unconsciously licked his lips and moved one of his hands to brush against the side of the teen's toned body. The connection sent a jolt of what could only be described as electricity through the blonde, but what shocked him most was the raven's reaction.

"H-hn." The already familiar syllable was a moan – but not as much of any carnal lust or need as much as a purer state of enjoyment – of _sinking_.

It was, in fact, exactly the sound Naruto had wanted to make upon their connection, but he subsequently found himself incapable of closing his eyes and enjoying the surreal feelings that were working their way into his gut, as he was inexplicably and irreversibly imprisoned by the raven-haired, onyx-eyed teen before him. He couldn't look away. He couldn't breathe. He'd only been near the guy a handful of times, and all within the last two days, and yet the mere hint of a thought implicating separating himself from the raven ignited physical pain in his chest.

_This isn't like before…_ a miraculously, stubbornly sane part of his mind commented quietly. _This is more…_

Unable to resist, Naruto took a much needed breath and touched the raven again, this time running both of his hands down the teen's toned sides until his warm palms rested on his masculine hips. The feeling was overwhelming now; the aroma, the sinking, succumbing warmth and calm of the morning in Shikamaru's bedroom was back, stronger than ever – but with it was a feeling of necessity, of _heat_, of _urges_ that Naruto couldn't comprehend.

Unconsciously, as he moved just that fraction closer to press them together, the blonde licked his lips.

But that was when Sasuke opened his eyes.

The teens' gazes joined instantly, the connection jolting some semblance of sense back into both the blonde's and the raven's minds with one, unforgiving sweep. In one second, the mist, the haze, the indescribable, nebulous cloud of warmth that had surrounded them fractured – _just_ long enough to allow them the time to pull away. But as that one moment of clarity stretched on, neither of them moved. They just stared straight into the other's eyes as they wondered what they would do.

Naruto was scared – there was no denying that. He was scared of Sasuke, he was scared of himself, and more so, he was scared of what he was feeling. But what he was feeling was _incredible_. He wanted more… he _needed_ more… and he knew through the simple fact that the proud raven, his onyx gaze just as scared and fascinated as the blonde's own, wasn't moving away, that he felt it too.

Breathing heavily, Naruto bit his lip, and, while still not moving away, shifted one of his hands to slide up Sasuke's side until he was gripping the taught body from just under the raven's ribcage. The movement caused the teen to tense slightly, but then (surprising them both), his body closed its eyes and sighed into the touch, seemingly without his conscious consent.

That was it; Naruto knew he had to do something. He didn't know what exactly, but an urge was building up inside him – heightened inexplicably by the powerful aroma and warmth that continued to weave through his body. He had no choice – his mind had been taken hostage by the powerful forces around him. He was intoxicated, addicted, and completely and utterly powerless against the rush of emotions that was overwhelming him so completely. And he knew that the raven was too.

It didn't matter that they'd tried to kill each other. It didn't matter that they'd never had a real conversation, or that they knew nothing about each other. All that mattered was the feeling that had inebriated them both so completely and utterly that they had _no choice_ but to be close... to be _closer_.

Sasuke winced, his head sagging forwards as Naruto tightened the grip he held on his torso, but easily pulled back to stare into the blonde's bright blue eyes they pressed each other together further, the movement a unanimous, anonymous action. Both teen's gasped softly as they pushed into each other, causing the door to the room to thud back on its setting as Naruto pressed almost his entire weight onto the pale teen.

The warmth within him was burning now, a fire of need. The serenity was still there, peaceful and calm, but it was mixed dangerously with a heat that threatened to overwhelm them both.

Biting his lip again so hard that it hurt, Naruto moved one of his hands to cup the raven's face – his thumb grazing over the defined cheekbone with calm, definitive strokes as he stared down into the endless onyx eyes.

The feeling was suffocating now, begging and desperate for him to move. He didn't know how, or where, or why, but Naruto knew he had to do something, _anything_ to alleviate the strength of the heat inside him.

So, with a stuttered breath, he leant forwards.

As soon as their mouths connected, everything snapped back into clarity. The warm, clam haze shattered back to cold, crystal-clear air as everything fell silent. Naruto could feel the raven tensing against him, even his own body tightening and straightening as the scent and warmth that had mere moments before been so incredibly overwhelming quickly dissipated in the air, but he still didn't move, whether through fear, or reluctance to let the previous feelings go, he didn't know.

For what felt like hours, neither of the teen's even did so much as breathe – Sasuke was still pressed against the door with nearly all of Naruto's weight upon him, the blonde's palm was still gently holding the raven's pale cheek, their mouths were still pressed together as their wide eyes stared at the other's – panicked and alarmed.

But, it was deadlock without an answer, so, gently – acting against every fiber of his being – Naruto pulled away.

Sasuke stayed still, not moving from his place against the bedroom door as the blonde moved back a few steps, awkwardly rubbing his golden hair as he tried to avoid the raven's dark gaze.

Sasuke was confused. He was confused because a part of him hadn't wanted the blonde to move. And that confusion scared him. And that fear made him angry.

"S-Sorry…" the word was elongated and soft as it was pushed form the blonde's mouth. "I…" The voice faded to silence as no believable explanation came to him.

Sasuke took a breath and gently moved himself from the door over to the end of his bed, where he sat down with a soft huff of effort. His limbs were thrumming with pressure. He didn't feel exactly like he was ready to speak, but he knew he had to. From the looks of it, if he didn't, the blonde was going to implode.

He shook his head in slight hesitation before he spoke, the words hard and unforgiving. "I think you should go."

The blonde looked at him for a moment, his expression so vulnerable that, if Sasuke had actually glimpsed it, he might have just reconsidered. "I… I'm really sorry-"

"Now."

Startled by the sudden shift in the raven teen's tone, Naruto straightened and nodded – his demeanor becoming much more formal as he moved swiftly to the window again.

Once crouched on the windowsill, as he had been when he'd first entered, the blonde hesitated and looked back at the raven – still staring at his feet. "I'm really sorry, Sasuke."

The sound of his name caused the raven's gaze to shoot up, locking onto the blonde's startlingly sincere expression with heightened ease.

"I meant what I said though. If you have any questions – any at all – you can ask me and I'll try and answer them. Shikamaru will know where I am."

At the lack of response, the blonde nodded awkwardly once again, and turned to prepare to jump out of the window. However, just as he was about to move, the raven's voice stopped him.

"I have fuck loads of questions," his strong, onyx stare locked onto the blonde's bright blue as he spoke, reiterating the strength and truth of his words. "You better be ready when I find you."

Naruto smiled then, causing unfamiliar warmth to stir inside both teens' chests as, without another word, he nodded again and left.

**TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

**... Hello :)**

** I'm _incredibly_ sorry for the _incredibly_ long wait... it was _incredibly_ bad of me. I would like to gush out excuses, but I know they don't really mean much... Let's just say that I currently have one assignment overdue and two more quickly on the way to being the same - hahahaha... FML!**

** Anyways, thank you for the gorgeous reviews, they really mean heaps :)**

****(btw, this chapter really isn't my favorite... and I don't really know why I just told you that... really, I should just change it so it is, right? I guess I'm just trying to lower the bar a bit... and now you're setup to be disappointed... but I'm also feeling lazy because I didn't make it better... ah well...****

******Have fun, and let me know what you think... please :)******

* * *

><p><strong>Four<strong>

It was Friday, and Sasuke had never felt less like going to school. The previous night had haunted him until dawn – his thoughts never subsiding or quieting enough to allow him rest, but consistently vague and nebulous enough to continue disallowing any semblance of constructive thought to occur.

However, if the sleepless hours had given the raven anything, it was that he desperately wanted answers… but also that he couldn't bring himself to ask the questions. What was he going to say? Sure, he wanted to know what happened to the blonde in the warehouse, how Shikamaru was linked to the whole situation, who the blonde and his redheaded friend actually were, but more than that – so vastly, overwhelmingly, inescapably more than that – was the will… the _need_… to find out what exactly was happening on a chemical, biological, unemotional basis between himself and the blonde.

But… from what he had seen and felt last night, the blonde had just about as much of an idea about all of it as he did.

_And that means I'll have to work with him if I want to work any of this out…_

And that scared the raven.

Immeasurably.

Stretching lazily before making his way to the bathroom across the hall, Sasuke sighed and contemplated his situation. As brazenly and emotionlessly as he could, he recalled the feelings that had swelled inside him a matter of hours ago. The _haze_, although vastly stronger and more…_ pink_, was much as he'd remembered it. But there had been something else at work that time, something hotter.

Resting his palms on the marble counter either side of the white sink, Sasuke gazed at his reflection in the large mirror before him.

_He kissed me…_ he thought the words pointedly, focusing on each one to make him realize that they were the inescapable, inexorable truth.

_And I…_ He took a breath, allowing his head to sag under the weight of his internal confessions. The angle also let him gaze over his bare torso, which, as he remembered the warm, firm hands that had gripped him there the previous night, only served to reiterate his point.

He took a breath, bringing his head back up to stare at the endless onyx of his reflected eyes with pure Uchiha courage.

_And I liked it. _

Easing out a breath, Sasuke smiled, laughing despite himself. Really, finally thinking it clearly was a bit anticlimactic.

Nodding, the raven ran his fingers through his hair and stripped off his dirty sweat pants before stepping into the shower – the cool water soothing on his tired skin.

_Today, I get some answers…_

* * *

><p>As soon as his class was dismissed for lunch, Sasuke rose from his seat and walked hastily out to the library, dodging teachers and students alike as he moved swiftly through the increasing hordes of people, who as a collective seemed to chatter like parrots and move like ants. He hadn't seen Shikamaru all day, and while the absence of the Nara, when he finally did need him, riled the raven a little, he at least knew exactly where he would be.<p>

Heaving on the large, wooden door to the library building – a separate, older structure standing free on the Eastern side of the large campus – Sasuke felt his shoulders relax as a cool draft of air shed him of the weight of the heat outside. His burgundy blazer was heavy on his shoulders, and the fatigue left from his sleepless night had worn on his nerves, but a potent blend of courage and desperation drove him onwards. He wouldn't turn back now – he was too involved, and too interested to let it go.

The raven spied Shikamaru's spiky hair from the other side of the large, open space, his head just visible beyond a study group bustling noisily around a cluster of wooden tables that partially obscured where the Nara sat, completely still and from the looks of it, utterly absorbed in his book.

Sasuke, like most in the school, had considered Shikamaru to be stupid, or at the very least too lazy to try and learn anything, and while most of the Nara's teachers and peers had remained under the disillusion, Sasuke had since become one of the few who were patient, interested, or simply observant enough to realize that the projection was in fact _very_ far from the truth. Shikamaru was not too lazy to learn anything. He was, in fact, just too lazy to share that he already knew everything that those around him were trying to teach. Sasuke's first suspicions had arisen when, in a particularly hot Wednesday physical education lesson two years ago, the teacher had announced that class would only end when a team won, and Shikamaru, on a seeming whim, had miraculously devised a strategic plan that all but guaranteed his team victory. He had then promptly gotten changed and headed to the library. Since then, little hints like sudden and unexpected eloquence and background knowledge in class discussions (whenever a teacher had pushed him to participate in one) had spurred the Uchiha on to become a slightly more than casual acquaintance with the Nara. Much like the way Shikamaru liked to surround himself with things he was interested in, Sasuke too shared a similar, if more mild, inquisitiveness towards the teen, and thus, their strange purgatory of formality and casualness had been conceived, as a means of convenience and entertainment for them both.

_Though, these days…_ Sasuke thought rather warmly as he slipped through a small cluster of students to make his way closer to the genius…_ he's reading much more of me than I am of him…_

Shikamaru only noticed Sasuke's presence when he pulled out a chair and landed opposite him in silence.

"How are you?" the Nara asked, returning his laconic gaze to the page in front of him.

The conversational cliché caught Sasuke somewhat off guard, though he was too tired to laugh at the apparent, at least to him, absurdity of the question.

"Fine."

Sasuke watched as Shikamaru bit his lip and closed the book, laying it on the table in front of him with a soft thud, before leaning forwards. Abruptly, surprising the raven, a soft, knowing smile tinted his features with cool warmth. "Really?"

Too fatigued and annoyed to keep up the pretences he'd convinced himself he would, Sasuke felt himself deflate a little. "No."

"You know," Shikamaru sighed as he leant back again and stretched his arms over his head until he heard a satisfying crack, "I was beginning to think you were going to try and forget the whole thing."

"I already tried… and failed," Sasuke scowled, "an outcome, might I add, that was made somewhat inevitable by that blonde guy's surprise visit last night." He finished the sentence with slight shock. He hadn't really settled on whether or not he was going to divulge that he'd seen the blonde since they'd awoken together in Shikamaru's room, but the words had slipped out. Regardless, he didn't see what harm they would do, so he decided not to dwell.

Shikamaru, however, had other plans.

"What?"

The alarm in the genius's voice, though well hidden, was still evident to Sasuke's ears, and he found his eyebrows pulling together in confusion at the tone. "_What_?" he repeated fairly redundantly.

"He saw you last night?"

Sasuke frowned now, eyeing the Nara somewhat skeptically. "…Yeah."

The genius sighed, crossing his arms as he sat back. "Gaara said he was concerned, but…" the words, spoken to no one in particular, dwindled to nothingness as the Nara deliberated. Then, turning his gaze to Sasuke, he spoke more clearly. "He shouldn't have done that."

"You're telling me!" Sasuke took a breath as he checked the volume of his voice, glancing around guiltily as the silence resettled in the large hall. "He scared the fuck out of me."

"Did anything happen?" The implications of the question were obvious, but since the blonde's visit, the raven's definition of _anything_ had been severely altered.

The blood that rushed to Sasuke's cheeks was bright enough for the raven to feel before it became particularly visible, but he still moved awkwardly in an attempt to thwart the Nara's acute senses in time for him to banish the embarrassing display.

It seemed to have worked, for Shikamaru didn't appear to have noticed anything particularly out of place, but Sasuke knew almost better than anyone at that point that the Nara was good at hiding things.

"Nothing like what happened in the warehouse," the raven evaded smoothly.

"I can't believe Gaara let him go to you…" The genius spoke, once again softly and seemingly to himself. Abruptly, he looked up at Sasuke and, upon glimpsing his mildly exasperated expression, smiled again. "How about you come to my house tonight?"

Sasuke shook his head. "My parents are coming back tonight, and I don't want to go to the other side of town – it would be a hassle to get back before the curfew they'll unavoidably give me this afternoon."

"No, I mean my _house_, you know, the one down the street?" He rolled his eyes as he stood, gathering five hardcover books into his arms as he did so. "And it's kind of insulting that you count that cesspool as my house. I do at least _live_ somewhere inhabitable."

Sasuke smirked at the joking tone and matched the Nara's languid pace as they headed slowly back to the entrance of the large building in sync. "…I'm not sure I want to know."

"And I'm not sure I want to tell you," the Nara responded practically instantly, his voice impassive. Forcing off a yawn, he glanced into the raven's eyes, recalling in a moment of reminiscence the red that had drowned him in the warehouse. "But I guess we don't have a choice now."

Nodding slowly, Sasuke followed the raven back to the main seniors' block in silence.

* * *

><p>"Naruto!" the blonde started at the sound of his name, though he remained silent as the syllables slowly dwindled into nothingness in the cool, silver night.<p>

"I know you're out here!"

Naruto took a long, slow breath and rolled over so that he was lying on his stomach, the angle allowing him to inspect the back entrance to the Nara's large house in surprising clarity. Standing in the halo of the open door was Gaara, the teen's lithe frame hunched against what he must have felt was penetrating cold, even though Naruto could lie quite comfortably in the darkness in nothing but a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a light shirt.

"He's going to be here soon. You can't hide out here the whole time!"

Naruto scowled and pressed his face into the grass underneath him in an effort to block the redhead out and erase him from the world... at least temporarily… "Why not!"

_He's rolling his eyes…_ Naruto thought with acidic certainty. _I can _feel_ him doing it…_

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Gaara shouted the question into the darkness, knowing that if he bothered to step further into the cold he'd be able to find the blonde in an instant.

Silence.

"Well, suck it up! He wants to see you and he'll be here soon!"

Naruto's body tensed with hope before he could stop it, but he quickly crushed the light, joyful emotion before it could infiltrate any more of him. "No he doesn't." He shouted back as he sat up a little. "He doesn't even know we'll be here, does he!"

"…"

"That's what I thought!" Naruto shouted at the hesitation as he crossed his arms and shut his eyes.

Scowling, Gaara tensed and walked off the back porch, bravely entering into the cold air of the darkness with frustrated grumbles of discomfort. He found Naruto not five seconds later, huddled behind a small tree with his arms around his legs and his head on his knees, his face wearing an expression consisting of a pronounced pout and disarming vulnerability.

Gaara swallowed, momentarily taken aback, before another shiver jumped down his spine as the cold air settled on his skin. "That's it!" He shouted as he grabbed the blonde by the wrist and hauled him to his feet with a surprising display of strength. There was nothing he hated more than the cold. "I don't care what the fuck happened between you two, this has got to stop. I know he hurt you in the warehouse, but you almost killed him _first_! _He_ still has the guts to come to Shikamaru's house, and he must have anticipated that there's at least a chance you'll be here! I don't know what happened last night, but if he can come here, so can you!"

The blonde shook his head and deflated as Gaara began pulling him inside with both hands like he was some oversized toddler, but the action ceased as Naruto's head snapped towards the house – his whole body tensing and his eyes focusing so suddenly and completely that Gaara almost jumped back in alarm.

"What?" The redhead queried, his voice quiet as he reflexively tensed at the apparent distress.

There was a prolonged silence, in which Naruto became stiller and more watchful than Gaara had ever seen him before. The words, when they came, were only a slight, almost indistinguishable break in his intensity. "He's here."

Gaara frowned at the words, glancing back towards the house as the worry seeped out of him and his muscles relaxed. Inexplicably, he'd known exactly whom the blonde was talking about. "How do you kno-"

The redhead's words were cut off as Naruto pressed his palms against his temples and clenched his eyes shut, falling to his knees slowly as he groaned. "Ah!" He exclaimed, the tone worrying Gaara until he continued. "He smells so _good_!"

"What the fuck are you _on_, Naruto!" The redhead growled as he ignored the painfully enraptured expression dawning on the blonde's face. "Are you serious?"

"I told you before. He smells _different_!" Naruto half-moaned, half-growled as he was hauled back to the house by the collar of his shirt, though he kept one hand tenaciously pressed against the side of his head, the fingers kneading his golden shards of hair with growing strength. "I can't go in there."

Gaara continued pulling Naruto, ignoring the increasingly serious tone of the blonde's words as he focused on the warm light emanating from inside the home. As Naruto and Gaara anticipated, the doorbell soon rung out - the sound reaching them as a faint echo of the volume it would have been inside the house. However, it was at that sound that Naruto hesitated for the hundredth time, and that hesitation was when Gaara then turned around.

And _that_ was when he froze.

"Whoa…"

Naruto stopped, his head clearing of the familiar scent somewhat at the sight of the redhead's widened eyes. "…what?"

"Are you… are you okay?"

The blonde straightened a little, eyeing the redhead with an uneasy, observant gaze. "Fine… why?"

"Naruto… you're Changed."

A bubble of disbelieving laughter escaped the blonde at Gaara's words, but the seriousness of both his tone and his expression quickly brought home the sincerity of what he was saying. Looking down at his body, Naruto saw that his hands, although not visibly darker in the colour-bleaching light of the moon, were sporting nails pointed and shaped so that they rather remarkably resembled claws.

Panic rising in his chest like bile, Naruto grabbed at his skull and turned away from the redhead to stagger closer to the large pond that sat before the sizable veranda. Collapsing onto his knees, the blonde peered into the crystal-still surface of the water and saw his reflection indeed reiterated the gravity of Gaara's concern. His hair was a little longer than usual and his skin a little darker, his eyes shone bright, glistening red, but more than anything else; peeping out over his lower lip were the tips of two white, canine teeth, their smooth surfaces cast silver in the moonlight.

Terror gripping him with startling speed, Naruto turned to look up at Gaara. The redhead simply stared back, watching with hawk-like concentration as Naruto frowned and struggled to speak. "I-I don't understand… I feel fine."

Gaara shook his head, confusion clear on his face, but he seemed to trust the words enough to move marginally closer.

"I don't get it…" Naruto repeated as he looked back into the pond. Gingerly, he touched his face with the tips of his fingers, careful to avoid scratching himself with the claws. "I feel fine. I don't feel like I'm Changing… or Changed…"

Gaara swallowed, uncomfortable with the strange turn of events. If there was anything he hated more than cold, it was surprises. "Something must be different… There's no reason…" the words became a mumble, the end of the sentence proving unneeded.

"Well… I can feel him." Naruto said, frowning as he unconsciously clutched the material over his chest. There was no need to clarify who '_he'_ was. "I mean," Gaara watched as something changed in the blonde's thinking, causing the idiot to smile and close his eyes as he succumbed to a feeling that the redhead was simply not privy to. "He smells so _good_."

Gaara started, jumping back a little as the words left the blonde's mouth in the form of a long, low moan. Whatever he was focusing on, it was powerful, and Gaara could almost _feel_ the teen slipping further and further away from their conversation. But as he watched, his gaze quiet patient, and observant, it was the sudden and noticeable lengthening of the two fanged, canine teeth visibly protruding from the blonde's mouth that finally caused Gaara to act.

"Naruto!" he shouted, the volume breaking the blonde out of his trance. "Stop thinking about him!"

Naruto frowned as he got to his feet, a little entertained by the redhead's seemingly paranoid concerns, but it was only when he began to smile that he felt exactly what had so suddenly caused the redhead alarm.

Immediately, he slapped both his hands over his mouth. "I wasn't even thinking about feeding, I swear!"

Gaara shook his head, glancing back towards the house as the dim sounds of voices wafted out to them on the cool, night air. Time was running out.

"Mmm." Naruto groaned; his eyes closing as he frowned in an effort to resist the urges he was feeling. "I _need_ to see him."

Gaara's eyes widened in alarm as the blonde began moving towards the house, seemingly caught in a trance.

"No! Naruto! Not when you're like that!"

The blonde shook his head, still not opening his eyes or moving his hands from his mouth as he groaned again, the strong sound muffled by his palms. "I'm fine, I don't know why, but I-"

"Naruto!" Gaara shouted as he wrenched the blonde back to face him. "Not like that! What do you think he'll do when he sees you! If there's any hope of him letting us help, not to mention any chance of letting us find out what his eyes were, you have to wait! Besides, we still don't know that you're not dangerous! You've never changed with your consciousness so intact – neither of us has. We can't take chances!" the redhead's tone was resolute and acidic. "Not now!"

Naruto shook his head as he clenched his eyes shut so tightly that he could feel them throbbing inside his skull. Everything Gaara was saying made perfect sense, but the feeling was there again – running through his mind with acidic stealth – urging, persuading, and manipulating him to get closer to the raven. He could _feel_ him, standing mere meters away as he talked with Shikamaru inside the house. Just a few walls separated them now. He _needed_ to get closer, and _Gaara_ was stopping him.

_No!_ His subconscious shouted the word at the darkness inside him with palpable anger as he forced his eyes open once again. _No! Gaara's right! I can't go to him – not yet!_ _Not like this!_

"Go." Naruto said as he turned himself away with a barley-disguised wince of physical pain. "You need to be in there."

"What about you?"

"I'll go to the warehouse!" Naruto shouted back, already disappearing into the darkness that surrounded the Nara residence. "There shouldn't be anyone there this time!"

Gaara nodded, uneasy as the blonde sprinted silently away.

_I don't like this at _all_…_

* * *

><p>Sasuke shivered as he stepped into the warm home, Shikamaru leading him inside with light conversation that felt almost perverse given the weight of the situation. The raven nodded occasionally to the Nara's words, responding with sporadic huffs of acknowledgment or humor at the meaningless syllables flowing slowly from the lazy teen's mouth, but his calm façade was hiding a bumbling mess of panic. The Uchiha was, in all truth, simply trying to force his body to relax. His nerves were thrumming with alarm that was both unwarranted and unneeded.<p>

But he couldn't help it.

Suddenly being in this situation was confronting, and while he had been the one to seek out the explanations that were awaiting him, his eyes were persistently glancing back behind him, to the entranceway and its promise of simpler, happier ways to pass the evening. But there was no choice now, and that was an inescapable truth. He had no _right_ to back away.

Abruptly, attention snapping back to reality, Sasuke took a short breath as movement caught his eye. He realized then, with a start of disbelief, that Shikamaru had already brought him all the way through the home and to a humble, lightly decorated kitchen – the neat, white benches dotted with dirty plates and bowls, the small table by the wall supporting a glass vase filled with wilting flowers, and a pile of worn textbooks adorning one side.

_It all seems so homely…_

"Oh, Gaara." Shikamaru acknowledged somewhat lamely, the words forcing their way into the raven's heavy thoughts and bringing his somewhat beleaguered brain to reluctant attention.

Sasuke stared, his eyes slightly widened at the silence, though it didn't take long for logic to creep back into his thought processes. The Uchiha looked around for a moment before settling his dark eyes on the figure of a teenager. A redhead. A _familiar_ redhead.

_Gaara_.

Sasuke stared as he came into the kitchen from the backdoor, the pale face scowling as he wrapped his lithe arms around his body in obvious cold. The guy was clearly upset about something – his expression, while it did lighten somewhat as the heat of the home soaked slowly into him, never fully expanding forth from a concrete, scowling grimace.

"Where's Naruto?"

Sasuke's keen, dark eyes flashed back to Shikamaru as he spoke the words, the mention of the blonde igniting a new type of pain in his chest – a type that he immediately disliked.

Indeed, as the raven shifted unconsciously in the mild discomfort that followed, he failed to notice the way Gaara's eyes flicked to him, their hazel irises intense and calculating.

Returning his gaze to Shikamaru within the second, the redhead covered his own concern with another scowl and sat with a quiet huff at one of the plain white chairs around the small table. "He won't be joining us."

The answer was simple, but it still sparked a remarkably similar response from both the teens before him – Shikamaru and Sasuke simultaneously creasing their brows in concern and, on the Uchiha's part especially, growing confusion.

There was no hiding it now. He wasn't even trying to. The apprehension and reluctance on Sasuke's face was as clear as day. And Gaara made a similar lack of effort in hiding his obvious distaste with the raven.

Silence settled on the three teenagers as they stared at one another – Gaara too annoyed at the situation to find words and interrupt the icy inspection of the Uchiha who was stealing so much of his friend's attention, Sasuke too unnerved not only by the attention imbued to him through he redhead's persistent gaze but also by the very nature of the fact that he was in the position at all, and finally Shikamaru, who was honestly struggling to find an appropriate way to approach the tense situation.

_Fuck…_ he thought, even the timbre of his mind reflective of the low, lazy tones with which he spoke. _I'm stuck with a worried, pissed off Gaara and a confused, defensive Sasuke…_

"So troublesome…" he muttered lightly as he sat forwards a little, the movement serving to sever the intense gazes twanging between the two before him. "So… where do you want to begin?" He asked Gaara softly.

The redhead ground his teeth for a moment, indecision clear behind his hazel eyes, but it didn't take him long to settle on a response – and Shikamaru knew merely by the set of his features even before he started speaking that it was the less convenient of the two. "How about we start with the fact that I don't like you," he spoke to Sasuke, and Sasuke alone, "I don't trust you, and I resent the fact that I have to explain any of this to you."

After a short moment of cool and lasting calm, anger swelled in the raven. His pride and (as much as he would like to believe otherwise) heritage forced the heat of anger up and over the chilling confusion and fear that had previously inundated him, to bathe his tired mind in dangerous defensiveness.

"What the fuck?" he asked, his gaze piercing as he straightened in his seat. His voice was just as calm and icy as the redheads own had been – a factor that, in a bizarre mix of social chemistry, made the words seem twice as loud and ten times as powerful. However, that didn't last long – his low tones gaining speed and volume with every syllable. "You think I _want_ to be here? This is your fucking fault. You and that blonde monster!"

Shikamaru's eyes widened as Sasuke spoke on. He could see where the moves of each of the people in front of him were leading, and it wasn't good. In the end though, he just couldn't move fast enough.

Gaara had his hand around Sasuke's throat in a second, the anger that he had previously let simmer inside him and leak into his words and gaze, now oozing from his quivering body in waves of red heat. "What the fuck did you just call him?" he shouted into the pale face as he used the momentum of his movements to push them both to the floor.

"Sasuk-" Shikamaru started, hoping to hell the suddenness of the attack would shock the Uchiha into silence, but alas, the Uchiha name wasn't known for nothing.

"I called him a fucking _monster_! What the fuck else is he? He tried to _kill _me!" Vaguely, somewhere in the very back of Sasuke's angry mind, he felt a pang of icy guilt at the words. A flash – lasting no more than a fraction of a fraction of a second – of his…closeness… to the blonde, came before him, but before he could settle on it, the moment was lost – drowned in the penetrating heat of the redhead's glare.

And the redhead _was_ glaring. He was _melting_ with anger.

"Who the FUCK do you think you are?" he spoke, his voice – this time – completely, icily still. "What gives you the right to come here and call _Naruto_ a monster when you almost killed him yourself; to demand answers and be pissed off when I say that _I_ don't fucking trust you?" he took a stuttering breath, only really noticing his position when Sasuke's reflexes made him shudder slightly under the unceasing weight of the constricting hand around his neck.

Shaking his head softly, Gaara huffed a note of completely humorless laughter and moved away, every subtle tinge to his movements suggesting that Sasuke was, simply, not worth his effort or time. "You know what?" he turned to Shikamaru for a moment before he looked back at the raven, who (despite rubbing the tender flesh of his pale neck) reciprocated the attitude completely. "Fuck this."

"Gaara-" Shikamaru started, his tone unafraid in its exasperation, but cautious in its volume.

"No." the redhead returned simply, providing his answer without turning around. "This guy doesn't deserve my time."

He turned back a little further, this time regarding Sasuke with different eyes – a stare deeper and darker than the Uchiha had ever seen before. The raven was, in that moment, completely sure that the hazel-eyed being was seeing something he was simply not privy to. But what really got him was the way that practically reflexively, his eyes began to itch and thrum with energy. Uncomfortable, dark energy.

"I can see it," Gaara spoke, seemingly oblivious to the raven's discomfort. "He has no idea what's around him, and he doesn't want to find out."

And then, as soon as the redhead looked away, just as quickly as the feeling had come, it vanished.

A little unnerved by the display of sudden darkness in Gaara, as well as the feelings accompanying it, Sasuke took a long moment to gather his nerves. Gently, he began to move – softly rubbing at his neck as the redhead casually neared the edge of the room.

"Gaara," Shikamaru spoke, his voice suddenly a very different tone. It was almost pleading.

Sasuke watched, somewhat perplexed from his place on the floor, anger still seeping out of him in rebellions waves of heat, as the two entered an exclusively private exchange.

"I know," the redhead answered softly, his eyes revealing a startling moment of vulnerability as he glanced down at his feet, his featured cast in what looked remarkably to Sasuke like a hint of a tinge of translucent, evasive shame. "I know – I'm sorry, but I'm too worried about Naruto to deal with this asshole now."

"He has to find out sometime." Shikamaru continued, his words somewhat relentless. Though even so, Sasuke could feel the way the Nara's words were cautiously testing Gaara's patience, like a man creeping over thin ice in an attempt to avoid the cracks.

"I know!" Gaara shouted, clenching his fists so tightly that he missed the way the words caused Sasuke to wince in shameful alarm. However, when he spoke again, his eyes never once strayed to the now-standing Uchiha. "But _he_," the redhead paused momentarily to point a finger in the raven's direction – his lightly muscled arm practically cracking with the force of the movement, "is a fucking _idiot_, and before I'm going to be willing to give up _any_ of my time helping him understand something he should have had the good sense to just fucking _forget_, he _has_ to accept the fact that if he defines _Naruto_ as a monster, than he is most certainly a monster too."

_Wow…_ that's all Sasuke could think as the teen's words and anger slowly faded into his pale skin, their energy thrumming inside him like hot coals. That comment hit too close to home. _A monster…_

Shikamaru took a deep breath as he watched the redhead slowly work himself into more and more intensified anger, also subtly conscious of the fact that Sasuke had just sunken even further into himself. But there was really nothing he could do, and (as he was much to rational to disregard) some protective part of himself was _also_ angry with the Uchiha for insulting Naruto as such, though the label meant little to anyone who didn't know his story.

"Tell him whatever you think he should know," Gaara spoke quietly as he turned away again. "I don't have the energy to deal with this now."

And with that, the redhead left – clicking the door shut with a calmness that seemed almost chilling.

Sasuke was struck into silence for a long moment as the events of the previous few minutes sank in. _How the fuck did that happen…_ he found himself wondering softly as he turned his attention back to Shikamaru, who was looking rather pissed off in his own laconic way.

Apparently, Sasuke's question didn't actually need to be voiced.

"You and him are a lot a like, you know." The Nara spoke slowly, his tone remarkably calm given what had just happened, and the tired look on his face. But apparently things like this happened often enough to not be of great concern.

"Me and _him_?" Sasuke asked, his inflection disbelieving as he sat back down, once again pressing his warm fingertips against his neck as Shikamaru got them both a glass of water.

"Yeah. You're both very arrogant and _very_ defensive." Shikamaru sighed the words as he placed a sparkling glass of clear liquid in front of the raven. "And he's _very_ protective."

"Of the blonde guy?" Sasuke spat the words, the tone reflexive.

Shikamaru was still for a moment before speaking. "I can understand where you're coming from, Sasuke, but I'm not going to keep it a secret that I was siding with Gaara on this one."

The raven felt his eyebrows crease together in slight betrayal and not-so-slight anger. But before the blaming questions could come to the front of his already tired and temperamental mind, he quelled them and forced himself to focus on why.

"I know." He admitted, his tone betraying his tenacious anger at Shikamaru's comment despite his conscious effort to overcome it. "I shouldn't have reacted like that." He scowled, feeling his anger grow. "But he shouldn't have either."

Shikamaru bit his lip as he leant back, silent for a long moment. "I don't know – it's all a little more than confusing."

Sasuke took a long drink of the water in front of him, his eyes darting back to the door that the redhead had disappeared from mere moments before. Coming so far and going through all that hostility, Sasuke's need to find some answers had completely drowned his reluctance to run away from them, but with the redhead leaving and the blonde no where to be seen, he was left with no option but Shikamaru, and for some reason, that option made him hesitate.

"How did you get wrapped up in all this?" The words were spoken as quickly as they were thought, and Sasuke found himself inexplicably tense while awaiting the answer.

Shikamaru huffed a note of humor at the question, his eyes closing slightly as he recalled memories the raven couldn't see. "I just watched." He spoke softly, letting his dark eyes connect with the Uchiha's own. "It's amazing what you can see if you look long enough."

Sasuke rolled his eyes slightly as he leant back, grateful for the calm conversation and the time it gave him to gather himself after Gaara's exit. "That's hardly an answer."

The Nara chuckled lightly, his fingertips drawing patterns in the condensation adorning the glass before him. "What do you want me to say? I wasn't attacked, I just sort of… I don't know… eased into it." Sasuke's silence urged him on. "I saw them around the house downtown a bit. I think they liked it there – just being around people. Then Naruto started talking to me," he sighed, a smirk adorning his features. "Gaara hated that, but eventually he came around too."

"What made them start talking to _you_?"

"I don't know," Shikamaru sighed. "I was just always there. And they trusted me," he sat forward a little, nodding towards Sasuke softly as he spoke on. "You, on the other hand, they didn't have time to trust – you were just thrown into it all. And besides that, now you've got Naruto on a loop. Really, it's no surprise that Gaara has no idea how to react to you." The Nara released a short note of laughter. "You're not exactly the most inviting person."

"That's not my fault." Sasuke continued, defensive. "And what does he think? That I should be_ more _inviting? _I'm_ the one who has to deal with finding all this out."

"And _they're_ the ones who have to deal with letting you in on it." Shikamaru countered instantly, his voice calm and sympathetic despite the bluntness of the words.

Sasuke took another breath, scenes of the warehouse, and the previous night, coming back to him in uncontrollable waves. "I don't know what to do. It's not like I wouldn't forget it if I could." He paused for a moment. "Are you going to tell me anything?" He asked, the memory of Gaara's last words echoing in his mind.

"Hmm," Shikamaru sighed, biting his lip slightly. "I was debating that."

Sasuke rubbed his eyes, and as he spoke on, he couldn't keep the pleading tinge out of his tone. "I need something, Shikamaru. I can't keep guessing like this. I need to know _something_."

"I know, I know." Shikamaru spoke quickly as he sat forwards, recognizing Sasuke's frustration with complete sympathy. "I guess…" he hesitated as he struggled on where to start. "I guess what you've got to know first is that they're more normal than you may think."

The Uchiha took a long, deep breath. "I don't feel like riddles, Shikamaru." His tone was warning.

The Nara smiled, entertained. "It's not a riddle, Sasuke." he echoed the raven's words. "I mean it. I know what you saw, but that's not an accurate representation of who they are, or what they can do. And you shouldn't take it as one."

Sasuke found himself shivering before he could stop it, the involuntary action sweeping down the muscles of his back and arms like a wave of impertinent proof of his lack of control. "The redhead does that _too_?" He asked, thinking of the power and animalistic actions of the blonde that night in the warehouse… of the feeling that accompanied him in Shikamaru's room… in his _own_ room…

_Surely that prick isn't like that as well… I mean… I didn't feel like that when he was around…_

Shikamaru hesitated after Sasuke's words, and that didn't help the situation. "Well… yes, but there's more that you've got to understand."

Sasuke felt the air filter out of his lungs in one, unstoppable flow of exasperation. _Where the fuck does this all end?_

"Naruto and Gaara aren't one of a kind – there are more of them." Shikamaru continued; deciding that just giving the Uchiha information was better than trying to navigate the waters of his remarkably warranted fear and uncertainties. He spoke on quickly, before Sasuke could settle on that last fact for too long. "Since about a hundred years ago, all the communities of their kind that had previously existed fell out of being. Now, Naruto and Gaara don't really know how many like them there are. Even now they're still finding clues on why they exist, where they come from, and what they are."

Sasuke shut his eyes and rested his elbows on the table so that his head could sag against his open palms. "Seriously?" he asked, the words muffled by the hands that pressed against his mouth. "Do they not have _parents_?"

Shikamaru spared no time in answering. "Naruto's an orphan, and Gaara was largely excluded by his family – or what little he knows of them – but that situation is also pretty complicated."

"So he does have parents."

"Around, no. Siblings, yes. But they're still extremely distant."

Sasuke let his hands fall to connect his gaze with Shikamaru again. "Why?" his tone was too overwhelmed to seem like he cared, but Shikamaru could sense his need to continue.

The Nara took a breath of hesitation, like Sasuke's words had just opened up another whole plethora of questions and answers on a new, more difficult facet of the topic.

"That's because… well… for Naruto and Gaara," Shikamaru stopped speaking for a moment, grimacing at the stumbling of his clumsy words. "Finding out information is especially hard for those two, because they're… different," he settled on the word with a grimace of distaste, "from the rest of the people that are like them." The Nara paused, spinning the half-empty glass in front of him with the palms of his hands, "Gaara's siblings, for example."

Sasuke, now leaning forwards, was fully enraptured in the conversation. In some inexplicable way, with this new onslaught of information, it felt much more like he was hearing the plot of some bad teen-fiction movie series than any _real_ circumstances. And that helped.

Infinitely.

"What you have to know is that what you saw, in the warehouse, is an ability…" he paused, unhappy with the word, "no, a trait…" he settled with a huff, "unique to Naruto and Gaara."

"What's so different about them?"

Shikamaru sighed a little, shrugging. "Don't know. They don't really know either. But that transformation – the one you saw with Naruto in the warehouse – that's doesn't happen to all of them. As far as Gaara and Naruto know, they think it's got something to do with being a host of a greater source of power that others either can't be, or just aren't."

Sasuke groaned a little, feeling once again overwhelmed with the information being presented to him. His brain hurt, he was tired, and he was still angry – though now that poisonous mix of emotion didn't seem to be aimed at anyone in particular. "What the fuck?"

The Nara spared a smile. "I know, right?"

After another lengthy pause, in which Shikamaru almost began to believe that the raven had had enough for one night, the Uchiha eventually spoke up again. "So, besides that, what's so different about Naruto and Gaara? What separates the people like them if not all of them can do," he paused, feeling a little ill as he was forced one again to remember the transformation of the blonde teen, "…_that_?"

_And why the fuck haven't I heard about any of it until now?_

Once again, Shikamaru smirked and bit his lip in indecision. "When _I_ started finding out about all this, I ended up getting so frustrated by Gaara's avoiding the question that I ended up forcing him to just give me a black and white answer. He'd danced around the topic for ages, giving me all these lengthy explanations about what they are, what he thought they are, and what he thinks everybody else is." Sasuke watched as the Nara's face sunk into a semblance of a grimace at the memory, causing a small touch of amusement to reach the raven's eyes as he spoke about the redhead's responses. "It was basically all non-essential crap. What it really boils down to – and you're not to tell Gaara that I told you this," Sasuke leant forwards, eager. "It all comes back to vampires."

Silence.

"…E-Excuse me?"

Shikamaru sighed, shrugging lightly as he leant back. "That's it. Vampires." He said, smiling softly. "Gaara will _always_ tell you otherwise, but when you look at the basics of what he's saying, that's what they are – even if he'll_ always_ try to sugar-coat it and make it sound better."

"Vampires?"

Shikamaru nodded, somewhat amused by the sight of the confused Uchiha before him. "Vampires."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

A hesitation. "Do they sparkle in the sun?"

Shikamaru couldn't help it by then. He laughed, for longer and more fully than Sasuke ever believed he could. Really, he couldn't tell if the Uchiha was trying to be funny, was demonstrating his disbelief, or whether his brain was simply trying with all its denying, disbelieving might to make the situation seem any less real. But in the end, it didn't matter. It was real.

"Not that I'm aware of." The Nara finally answered with a light chuckle.

Shikamaru watched, still, as the Uchiha slowly exhaled a deep lungful of air and let his head sag slightly. "You know – all this just makes me feel like I haven't found out anything. I mean, _fuck_… vampires? _Really_?"

Once again, Shikamaru smiled and nodded. "Don't worry – there's still a lot to go through, and a whole lot more for you to find out." He sighed a little. "What's really going to be interesting is how _you_ fit into all this."

"Oh yeah…" Sasuke breathed. "I forgot about me."

Shikamaru watched Sasuke for a long moment, noticing the way his usual posture was falling into a stance much more common for a teenager – a stance of defeat, and of complete and utter hopelessness. It was a state of being so far from his usual persona that the Nara couldn't help but feel a little unnerved by it.

"Just…" Shikamaru shrugged lightly, feeling sympathy overcome him. _Really… when _I _found out, at least I was reasonably certain that I was normal._ "I don't know… just look on the bright side."

"What fucking bright side?"

The Nara smiled then, unable to hold back after hearing such a childishly immediate response work itself from the raven – the words colored in a timbre of light blue with their defiance. Sasuke too, seemed to pick up on this fact, and allowed a soft huff to escape him at his own reaction.

Finishing the glass of water in front of him with one long, patient gulp, Shikamaru spoke. "At least things have gotten interesting, right?"

Sasuke didn't respond to that – mostly because he instantly recognized it as the inescapable truth. And it was a truth not only that this whole situation was interesting, but also that that it was – completely, utterly, and totally – a _bright side_.

_When did my life get so fucking depressing that I would find getting mixed up in this shit a _good_ thing?_

He didn't know. But it had.

Looking back up to Shikamaru and deciding in his haze of tiredness and relentless confusion to forget his additional questions for another night, Sasuke smiled – this time the expression not forced in the least. "At least I'm not insane."

**TBC**


End file.
